I could hear my own heart thudding most
extraordinarily loud. I began, however, to feel better, after a while;
but I simply had not the pluck to move. You can understand?
"Presently, I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and
flashlight, and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced
once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched
a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, I knew that his
eyes were not. It is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. The
police were just as silent. And thus a while passed.
"A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room
there came faint noises. I recognized them at once, as the breaking of
the sealing-wax. _The sealed doors were opening._ I raised the camera and
flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped
me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I
felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder,
if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. Yet, in the moment of
brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.
"Suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the
floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and
a sense of a very real and present danger--_imminent._ The 'blood-drip'
had commenced. And the grim question was now whether the Barriers could
save us from whatever had come into the huge room.
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