At the first attempt he uttered a kind of grunt and moved, throwing out
his hand. She thought that he was going to awake, and had hard work to
keep herself where she was; but he did not move, and she began again with
so infinite a precaution that the perspiration ran down her face and her
hair within the hood hung dank on her neck. Slowly, oh so slowly, she
drew back the hand, and with it the packet; so slowly, and yet so
resolutely, being put to it, that when the dreaded flash surprised her,
and she saw his harsh swarthy face, steeped in the mysterious aloofness
of sleep, within a hand's breadth of hers, not a muscle of her arm moved,
nor did her hand quiver.

It was done--at last! With a burst of gratitude, of triumph, of
exultation, she stood erect. She realized that it was done, and that
here in her hand she held the packet. A deep gasp of relief, of joy, of
thankfulness, and she glided towards the door.

She groped for the latch, and in the act fancied his breathing was
changed. She paused, and bent her head to listen. But the patter of the
rain, drowning all sounds save those of the nearest origin, persuaded her
that she was mistaken, and, finding the latch, she raised it, slipped
like a shadow into the passage, and closed the door behind her.

That done she stood arrested, all the blood in her body running to her
heart. She must be dreaming! The passage in which she stood--the
passage which she had left in black darkness--was alight; was so far
lighted, at least, that to eyes fresh from the night, the figures of
three men, grouped at the farther end, stood out against the glow of the
lanthorn which they appeared to be trimming--for the two nearest were
stooping over it. These two had their backs to her, the third his face;
and it was the sight of this third man which had driven the blood to her
heart. He ended at the waist! It was only after a few seconds, it was
only when she had gazed at him awhile in speechless horror, that he rose
another foot from the floor, and she saw that he had paused in the act of
ascending through a trapdoor. What the scene meant, who these men were,
or what their entrance portended, with these questions her brain refused
at the moment to grapple. It was much that--still remembering who might
hear her, and what she held--she did not shriek aloud.

Instead, she stood in the gloom at her end of the passage, gazing with
all her eyes until she had seen the third man step c