THE OUTER DARKNESS
Something was waking her. Someone seemed to be knocking on the outer door of her brain. She came back to consciousness as one returning from a far, far journey that yet had occupied but a very brief space of time. An inner sense of urgency awoke and responded to that outer knocking. As through a maze of disconnected impressions she heard a voice.
"I give you ten seconds, my lord," it said. "Just--ten--seconds!"
The words were absolutely quiet, they sounded almost suave; but the deadly determination of them smote upon her like the call of a trumpet. She started up.
The next instant she was staring about her in utter bewilderment. She was lying on a deep couch in a room she had never seen before, a strange, conical chamber, oak-panelled, lighted by a domed skylight. It was furnished with bizarre Eastern luxury. The couch on which she lay was a nest of tiger-skins.
But she saw these details but vaguely. That voice she had heard had made all else of no importance. It had spoken close to her, but it was not in the room with her, and she could not for the moment tell whence it had come. She could only listen with caught breath for more, listen with starting eyes fixed on the stuffed skin of a cobra poised on a small table near as if ready to strike. She even fancied for a moment that the thing was alive, and then realized with a passing relief that it had been converted into the stem of a reading-lamp.
Again the voice came. It was counting slowly, with the utmost regularity.
But it was not allowed to continue. Saltash's voice; quick and imperious, broke in upon it. "Be quiet, you damn' fool! If you murder me, you'll only be sorry afterwards. I have told you I don't know where she is."
"You have told me a lie, my lord." Grim as fate came the answer, and following it a movement that turned her sick with fear.
She sprang to her feet with a wild cry. "Jake! Jake! I am here! Jake,--come to me!"