I did listen, and no longer hesitated about groping my way into the darkness beyond. For noises, loud and threatening, penetrated to my shrinking ears, and told me that the house had already been forcibly entered. Of course the doors had been locked behind us, and I could hear that these were being beaten down with heavy weapons.
“Now, silence, for your life!” whispered Sergius. “Trust me to lead you to safety.”
Not another word was exchanged between us for several minutes, during which, having crawled on to a sort of shelf, and covered the opening by means of a spring sliding panel, we found it necessary to crawl for some distance on all fours, in a stifling atmosphere which threatened to choke us. But at last this ordeal was also over, and we emerged into another chamber, similarly arranged to the one by which we had entered the species of tunnel which we had just traversed.
I was by this time almost exhausted with terror and haste, and was thankful indeed to be told that the worst danger was now over. But I exerted myself womanfully to hide the full extent of my distress from Sergius, and have since felt rather ashamed at times when he has insisted upon praising my courage and fortitude.
“You may put your shoes on again now,” he said, “and we shall no doubt find some one in the next room ready to give us a good brushing.”
It was as he said. But it took a good wash, as well as a good brush, to make us at all presentable, and every requisite facility for furbishing up one’s toilet was to be found here.
“How strange it seems,” I said, “to have come into such handy quarters. I understand the comforts of the other end. But these two little rooms seem to be only used for dressing, and don’t communicate with a bedroom at all.”
“That is easily explained. We are now actually in a theater, and these are the manager’s dressing-rooms. He is one of us, and the whole plan of escape is of his devising. That passage along which we crawled is space taken from the front upper rooms of three houses that we have crossed. It was necessary to take off our shoes, in order not to make too much noise over other people’s heads; but even the chance of betrayal on this score is practically guarded against, since all these front rooms have been taken by various members of our Fraternity. They would know what a scrambling noise overhead meant, but there is a possibility of antagonistic strangers being sometimes present in some of the rooms, so we are always as careful as possible. There, now, if you have quite recovered your breath, we will follow the rest of our friends downstairs.”
In a few minutes we found our way down staircases along corridors into what proved to be the manager’s private room, and here the manager himself was conversing with several of those who had so recently escaped a mortal danger.
“Ah! here you are, Brother Volkhoffsky,” he said. “Do you think the alarm has been a false one, or that the flight was unnecessary?”