Only a sheet of rain flickering in darkness before him. He got up spasmodically, feeling so weak that he could not push the chair away, and glanced over his shoulder at the travelling-clock.
It was not yet ten minutes to twelve. A horrible sensation of unreality, and a feeling as though the chair were entangled in his legs. Then he heard Dr. Fell's shout from downstairs somewhere. They had seen it, too. It couldn't have been out more than a second. The face of the clock swam; he couldn't take his eyes from those placid small hands, or hear anything but the casual ticking in a great silence….
Then he was wrenching at the knob of the door, throwing it open, and stumbling downstairs, in a physical nausea which made him dizzy. Dimly he could see Dr. Fell and the rector standing bareheaded in the rain, staring towards the prison, and the doctor still was carrying a chair under his arm. The doctor caught his arm.
"Wait a minute! What's the matter, boy?" he demanded. "You're as white as a ghost. What-
"We've got to get over there! The light's out! The―"
They were all panting a little, heedless of the rain splashing into their faces. It got into Rampole's eyes, and for a moment he could not see.
"I shouldn't go so fast," Saunders said. — "It's that beastly business you've been reading; don't believe in it. He may have miscalculated the time… Wait! You don't know the way!"
Rampole had torn from the doctor's grasp and was running through the soggy grass towards the meadow. They heard Rampole say, "I promised her!" — and then the rector was pounding after him. Despite his bulk, Saunders was a runner. Together they slithered down a muddy bank; Rampole felt water gushing into his tennis shoes as he bumped against a rail fence. He vaulted it, plunged down a slope and up again through the long grass of the meadow. He could see little through the blinding cataract of rain, but he realized that unconsciously he was bearing to the left, toward the Hag's Nook. That wasn't right; that wasn't the way in; but the memory of Anthony's journal burned too vividly in his brain. Saunders cried out something behind him, which was lost under the crackle and boom of thunder. In the ensuing flash of lightning he saw a gesticulating Saunders running away from him to the right, towards the gate of the prison, but he still kept on his way.
How he reached the heart of the Hag's Nook he could never afterwards remember. A steep slippery meadow, grass that twisted the feet like wires, then brambles and underbrush tearing through his shirt; he could see nothing except that he was bumping into fir trees with a gutted precipice looming up ahead. Breath hurt his lungs, and he stumbled against sodden bark to clear the water from his eyes. But he knew he was there. All around in the dark was a sort of unholy stirring and buzzing, muffled splashes, a sense of things that crawled or crept, but, worst of all, an odour.
Things were flicking against his face, too. Throwing out his hand, he encountered a low wall. of rough stone, and felt the rust of a spike. There must be something in the feel of this place that made your head pound, and your blood turn thin, and your, legs feel weak. Then the lightning came with broken illumination through the trees… He was staring across the wide well, on a level with his chest, and hearing water splash below.