Out of the Triangle: A Story of the Far East

by Mary E. Bamford

He felt here and there in the dark hall. A peculiar odor floated in the heavy air. Timokles hesitated, fearing he knew not what. His eyes could not pierce the deep gloom.

Resolving to see whither the hall led, he groped on, wondering if this were the place in which the inhabitants of the oasis were wont to confine prisoners. He came to a door. It opened readily to his touch, and he passed into what had once been a large dwelling-room. He stepped softly forward, noting the emptiness and desolation of the place. The peculiar odor of the air was more noticeable than before, but it was not till he had reached the middle of the darkened room, and stood gazing about him, that he perceived at the farther end, in the shadows, a space of yellowish fawn color, and then saw manifold dark spots, also, that shaped themselves into a large, living form.

Timokles drew one quick breath. He softly retreated. Keeping his eyes fixed on the huge, sleeping leopard, Timokles put out his hand to take hold of the door through which he had come. His groping fingers found nothing but the blank wall!

Hastily turning with alarm, Timokles passed his hand over the wall's surface. Surely the door had been here! There was no handle, no line in the wall to indicate the existence of a door.

How silently it had swung shut, when he had come through! He remembered that there had been no noise. He pressed his full force now against the wall. He tried it softly, cautiously, here and there, till he had passed over the entire space in which he knew the door must be, and yet the wall stood apparently blank and whole before him! The other walls seemed to be solid.

With beating heart, Timokles pushed once more at the partition. It remained firm. Trembling with the shock of his sudden entrapping, Timokles looked toward the room's far end. It was as he thought. The beast was not chained. The sleeping leopard's spotted hide heaved softly yet, with undisturbed breathing, and as Timokles watched across the space, he remembered the ominous words spoken to him on his entrance into this building: "Go in, O Christian! Others have gone before thee!"

For a time, overcome by the horror of his situation, Timokles leaned against the partition, the door through which had so mysteriously disappeared. His eyes, between quick glances at the sleeping leopard, searched with desperate intensity every part of the room, for some means of escape.

"Is there no place?" he questioned.

Stealthily he crossed the apartment, and felt of the opposite wall. It was immovable. Nowhere in it could he discover any opening.

The beautiful beast, the waking of which meant so much to Timokles, stirred a little. The claws of one foot were drawn up. Then the foot was relaxed again. The leopard continued to slumber.