“Behind me, I heard the policemen moving again, and I knew that they were getting thoroughly frightened.  I turned half ’round, and told them, quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them.  If they once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.

“I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any ‘Protection,’ they would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the ‘Defense,’ and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.

“Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness.  I had a sense of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as yet, was scarcely conscious of us.  I leant across to Wentworth, and asked him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the room.  He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move.  He glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away ’round the hall again.  And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.

“Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.

“I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen solid.  I felt the ‘creep’ go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain.  I felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the normal.  I could hear my own heart thudding most given a power of hearing that was far beyond the normal.  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.