possibly many more of Victor's creatures; but if only she could
find some sort of refuge in the uppermost fastnesses of the rookery,
perhaps ...

Like a shape of smoke wind-driven, she sped up the first flight, then the
second, only pausing at the head of the third and last flight to throw
hunted glances right, left, and behind her.

Overhead a skylight with dingy panes diffused a dull blue glimmer which
discovered a yawning door at her elbow, a pocket of black mystery beyond,
and on the uppermost steps of the staircase her patient yellow shadow, his
upturned eyes inscrutable but potentially revolting with their very
concealment of the intent behind them.

Impossible that a worse thing could await her beyond that dark
threshold....

She crossed it in one stride, swung the door to, and set her shoulders
against it.

Outside she heard the shuffling footfalls pause. The knob rattled. But
instead of the inward thrust against which she stood braced, there came the
least of outward pulls, as if to make sure that the latch had caught; and
after a brief pause a key grated in the lock, was withdrawn, and the
slippered feet withdrew in turn.

When her lungs ceased to labour painfully, she took her courage in both
hands and began to explore, groping blindly through darkness, encountering
nothing till she blundered into a table which held a glass lamp for
paraffin oil, like those in use below.

Fumbling over the top of the table, she found matches, struck one, and set
its fire to the wick.

The flame waxed and grew steady in a crusted chimney, revealing a room with
a slant ceiling and two dormer windows, boarded; in one corner a cot-bed
with tumbled blankets, near this a low wooden stand, with a pipe, spirit
lamp, and other paraphernalia of an opium smoker--no chairs, not another
stick of furniture of any kind.

Removing the lamp, the girl set it on the floor, and pushed the table over
against the door. By not so long as half a minute would its reinforcement
delay Victor when he made up his mind to get in. But in such emergencies
the human kind is not impatient of the most futile expedients.

There was nothing more she could do. She stood still, listening. The rattle
of pistol fire three floors below continued in fits and starts, but the
sound of it was oddly unreal, resembling more stammering explosions of a
string of firecrackers than snaps of the whiplash of Death.

She tried one of the windows without encouragement