"What is it?"
"I don't know."
Both had just experienced a weird sensation, impossible to define. Upon their hands and faces slight prickings irritated the skin. The air at the same time seemed heavier and more difficult to breathe. There was, besides, a soft, vague crackling. With some difficulty Juve lighted his pocket-lamp. By its faint glimmer the two men made a discovery. A fine rain of sand was falling from the ceiling.
"It's collapsed!" cried Fandor.
"We're done for!" replied Juve.
They passed through some awful moments. All around the sand gathered and rose.
Juve tried to comfort his friend:
"It would need an enormous amount of sand to fill this room and bury us alive. It will cease to fall presently."
But horrible to relate, as the level of the sand rose on the floor, they observed by the flickering gleam of the lamp, that the ceiling was now being lowered little by little.
Fandor raised his arm and touched it. They were about to be crushed.