Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/320

 footsteps, muffled whispers and hard breathing were the first sounds which greeted my dulled senses when once again I woke from one of those strange and fitful sleeps in which the mysterious poison held me periodically enthralled.

Through the marble tracery brilliant daylight came peeping in, making the sanctuary lamps appear pale and ghost-like. My head felt less heavy, and my eyes were less painful. It seemed to me that the shuffling steps drew nearer, and as they approached the whispers ceased. I was still a prisoner, but my brain was fully alert, and soon I perceived that two forms, swathed in white, had paused a moment beside the gateway.

I made an earnest appeal to all my wits, and, holding my breath, crouching against the wall, I waited. Soon a refreshing current of outer air told me that the gateway had been opened, that if I kept my wits about me, my one chance of deliverance had come.

Like the flash of a sudden instinct, the thought came to me that perhaps some one was coming to see whether the deadly narcotic had thoroughly accomplished its work; or perhaps, after all, Hugh had fallen into the awful trap, and it mattered nothing if I were prisoner or free. With my mind filled with terrible doubts and presentiments, I yet had the strength to remain perfectly still: I guessed what I ought to look like, if indeed I were still under the influence of the drug, and 298