Exasperated, Martin paused. He looked round with curiosity, and then with some feeling other than exasperation.
He was the only living soul in this maze. Yet he was not alone. Everywhere he was pursued, surrounded, and furtively glanced at round corners, by images of himself.
The dim yellow light, from some concealed source along the tops of the mirrors, turned the place into a shiny, shadowy labyrinth, all straight lines and right-angles, short passages and long, with one looking-glass occupant.
Martin Drake, turning to one side, confronted himself: he looked, with the discoloured forehead, exactly like a pirate. He turned to the other, with the same result. He walked forward again, his footsteps clumping, to what seemed to be the junction of four passages. As he circled round, a whole band of pirates multiplied and circled with him.
(All right If H.M. is up to some crafty game, let it be taken as done. I'm going to get out of here.)
That would be easy, of course. He had only to remember where he came in, which must be comparatively close. But the fact was that he couldn't remember where he came in.
Well, what of it?
All that would be required of him, as Stannard had said, was a little logical reasoning. A sense of direction, too. Here— observe, now! — was the junction of what appeared to be four corridors. One of them looked like a dead-end. Martin edged in, leaching out his fingers to touch his own reflected fingers, and met the glass. Good! He'd established that.
Now the other corridor, opposite, must be fully twenty feet long. It had a mirror there facing him; but a long corridor must have a turn at the side which (now he remembered!) was the direction he had come.
Martin, heated with elation, took five strides forward. And..