Sudden, numbing fear seized Beatrice. Now for the first time she realized the imminent peril; now she regretted her insistence on seeing the Horde at close range.
She turned, pale and shaken; and her trembling hand sought the engineer's.
He still, for a moment, kept his eye to the crack, fascinated by the very horror of the sight. Then all at once another figure shambled into view.
“A female one!” he realized, shuddering. Too monstrously hideous, this sight, to be endured. With a gasp, the man turned back.
About Beatrice he drew his arm. Together, almost as soundlessly as wraiths, they stole away, out through the office, out to the hallway, into the dim light of the arcade once more.
Here, for a few moments, they knew that they were safe. Retreat through the Marble Court and up the stairs was fairly clear. There was but one entrance open into the arcade, the one through Pine Tree Gate; and this was blocked so narrowly by the giant bole that Stern knew there could be no general mob-rush through it--no attack which he could not for a while hold back, so long as his ammunition and the girl's should last.
Thus they breathed more freely now. Most of the tumult outside had been cut off from their hearing, by the retirement into the arcade. They paused, to plan their course.
At Stern the girl looked eagerly.
“Oh, oh, Allan--how horrible!” she whispered. “It was all my fault for having been so headstrong, for having insisted on a look at them! Forgive me!”
“S-h!” he cautioned again. “No matter about that. The main thing, now, is whether we attack or wait?”