"This," he said aloud, "is a nightmare from which I must awaken or lose all my power of action and my ability to help my country in its peril."And sudden sweat broke out on his brow, for he perceived that he had now no means of telling even whether there was a peril, so strangely had Joe's words affected his powers of credulity.
"But surely," he thought, steadying himself by gripping his washstand, "there was, at least, a peril once.And yet, how do I know even that, for I have only been told so ; and the tellers themselves were only told so by this Unseen Power ; and suppose it has made a mistake or has some private ends to serve! Oh! it is terrible, and there is no end to it.