Finally the two old men stepped cautiously up to their respective father and grandfather, still rigorously motionless in his strange dormeuse; and avoiding the slightest noise, they slowly, gently, wheeled him towards a point on the floor which I noticed was marked off, with geometrical exactitude, by four plaques of glass—one apparently for each of the four legs of the chair. Indeed, when they had pushed the old man to the square, the count and the vicomte kneeled on the floor to make sure that each castor was in the right position. From all their movements I could see that the operation they were about to perform was one requiring meticulous accuracy. This chair in place, they turned to the second dormeuse, which, though empty, was advanced just as carefully and noiselessly, and its position verified with just as thorough an examination.
Whereupon, the two old men returned to the seats they had previously occupied, now, however, sitting with their backs against the wall and their faces turned toward me. During all this time, I, for my part, had not stirred; nor had I been once disturbed or caused to change my position in the slightest.
I sat there, observing intently. Things were now arranged as follows in the room: the two dormeuses and the horse stood at three points on a straight line running lengthwise of the hall. The two seats faced each other, with the horse between them but nearer to one than to the other. Assuming the lens to be a refractor, I concluded from a rough computation of the angles, that the image passing through it from one chair would fall exactly into the other.
However, the Marquis Gaspard, his body still relaxed and his eyes closed, continued to give not a sign of life.
A long silence ensued.
XXVI
A long, long silence....
At first I struggled with all my soul to keep cool and indifferent, preserving on my features the mask of disdain which I had somehow imprinted there. But little by little I could feel that the hold I had on my nerves was growing steadily weaker. My Adventure was beginning to show a semi-supernatural aspect the very indefiniteness of which gradually paralyzed my courage as my motor centers had been paralyzed an hour or more before. So much so that eventually I grew alarmed lest my captors perceive the uncontrollable anxiety that was taking possession of me: I suddenly arose, and with the idea of hiding the expression on my face, I walked several steps away down the room.