“It's all up,” muttered Drake. “No place to run. They're bound to smash us. Stick close, Doc. Get back to Ruth. Maybe I can stop them!”
Before I could check him, he had leaped straight in the path of the rushing globes, now a scant twoscore yards away.
The globes stopped—halted a few feet from him. They seemed to contemplate us, astonished. They turned upon themselves, as though consulting. Slowly they advanced. We were pushed forward and lifted gently. Then as we hung suspended, held by that force which always I can liken only to myriads of tiny invisible hands, the shining arcs of their backs undulated beneath us.
Their files swung around the corner and marched down the passage by which we had come from the immense hall. And when the last rank had passed from under us we were dropped softly to our feet; stood swaying in their wake.
A curious frenzy of helpless indignation shook me, a rage of humiliation obscuring all gratitude I should have felt for our escape. Drake's eyes blazed wrath.
“The insolent devils!” He raised clenched fists. “The insolent, domineering devils!”
We stared after them.
Was the passage growing narrower—closing? Even as I gazed I saw it shrink; saw its walls slide silently toward each other. I pushed Drake into the newly opened way and sprang after him.
Behind us was an unbroken wall covering all that space in which but a moment before we had stood!
Is it to be wondered that a panic seized us; that we began to run crazily down the alley that still lay open before us, casting over our shoulders quick, fearful glances to see whether that inexorable, dreadful closing was continuing, threatening to crush us between these walls like flies in a vise of steel?