Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/105

Rh the darkness. That same instant Pollie caught the trick of it; the door opened.

“Inside!” she gasped.

I was inside, moving faster than I had ever done in my life before. And Pollie was after me. The door shut behind us, seemingly of its own accord, with a kind of groan.

“That was a near thing!”

It could hardly have been nearer. Whoever was upon our heels had almost effected a simultaneous entrance with ourselves.

“He made a grab at my skirt; I felt his hand!”

But the door had closed so quickly that whoever was there had had no time to make an attempt to keep it open. It was pitch dark within, darker almost than it had been without. Pollie pressed close to my side. The fingers of one of her hands interlaced themselves with mine; she gripped me tighter than she perhaps thought. Her lips were near my ear; she spoke as if she were short of breath. “There’s a good spring upon that door; it moved a bit too fast for them; it shuts like a rat-trap. Listen!”

There was no need to bid me to do that; already my sense of hearing was on the strain. Someone, apparently, was trying the door; to see if it was really shut; or if it could not be induced to open again.

There were voices in whispered consultation.

“There’s more than one; I wondered if there was more than one.”

“There are three,” I said.

Presently someone struck the door lightly, with the palm of the hand, or with the fist. Then, more forcibly, a rain of blows. Unless I was mistaken, the assault came from more than one pair of hands; it was like an attack made in the impotence of childish passion. The voices were raised, as if they called to us. They were like none which either of us had ever heard before;