“A match!” he palpitated. “That will show me something!”
In another moment he had taken the match safe from his pocket, but, in his nervousness, he dropped it.
With a muttered exclamation of dismay, he stooped to find it.
A moment later a gasping cry of horror came from his lips.
His hands touched something cold and slippery, and that touch was enough to make him shudder and quake.
Frank fell back, and for some minutes he crouched there in the darkness of that terrible place, feeling cold chills run down his back.
“I must have those matches,” he finally muttered, although the words were broken and unsteady. “It is a case of must, and I’ll find them, even if I have to feel the thing all over.”
He seemed to feel himself in the midst of unseen horrors, and he longed to rush from the spot, but he knew that there would not be one chance in a hundred of his finding the matches if he moved away.
Setting his teeth and nerving himself for the task, he felt about for the match safe—and found it!
With a feeling of unutterable joy and relief he clutched the metallic case. His fingers found the spring, and it opened to his touch.