Thank heaven! Blob, the faithful, was still there.
He marked the cheerful gleam of the lantern, a tiny red spark in the darkness.
As he shuffled rapidly along he saw the patch of light on the floor beneath the man-hole.
But—was he mistaken?—or was not that patch, dim and dappled before, bright now as the moon?
He stopped. His heart was thumping so that he almost expected the covering drain to crack, and reveal him to the world.
Suddenly the patch vanished. All was darkness save the red eye of
Blob's lantern far away.
Then that too went out.
The blackness was stifling, horrible. He opened his mouth to draw breath.
Then the light at the man-hole appeared again, shining now no longer on the floor, but on a man's head, bristling, and with huge ears.
Some one was squatting in the drain.