“Sure, Raymond?” said Jeffrey Ember. “Quite, quite sure?”
He came up quite close, and laid his right hand lightly on her shoulder. It was the first time that he had touched her.
She said just the one word, “Yes.” For a moment his hand closed hard upon her. Then he sprang back with a laugh.
“All right, then we go up together.” And, as he spoke, he made for the corner where a little vulcanite knob showed above the steel safe.
With a sort of howl Belcovitch whirled to meet him. They crashed together and grappled, Ember silent, Belcovitch torrential in imprecation and fighting as a man frenzied with terror does fight. His revolver dropped from his hand, and Ember stumbled over it.
Like a flash Henry had Raymond by the arm, whilst his eyes commanded Jane and he pointed to the passage that led out of the laboratory on the extreme right. It was the one that Jane had explored first, and as she ran into it she remembered that it ended in a small chamber full of packing-cases. In a panting whisper she said:
“It’s full of boxes.”
“Then we must shift them,” said Henry, and, groping in the almost dark, he began to pull the cases away from the right-hand wall.
“A light—he can’t find the spring without a light.”
Raymond heard her own voice saying this, and then she ran back down the passage and into the laboratory.