“Open it gently,” whispered Jessie, for the party had now got to the condition of feeling very much as if they were themselves burglars, engaged in some unholy enterprise, and feared to arouse sleepers. But they need not have feared, for their landlady was one of the “seven sleepers” of Yarmouth.
Liffie exerted her little strength with caution, but the lock was stiff; it would not move. She screwed up her mouth, and put-to more strength; still it would not move. Screwing up her eyebrows as well as her mouth, she tried again. It would not budge. She even screwed up her nose in a stupendous effort, but all in vain. If there had been no need for caution, the thing would have been easy, but Jessie kept whispering, “Softly, Liffie, softly!” and Ruth echoed “Softly!” At last Liffie screwed herself up entirely, body and soul, in one supreme effort; she agonised with the key. It yielded, and the bolt flew back with a crack like a pistol-shot.
“Oh!” burst in four different keys—not door-keys—from the party—under their breath however.
“Open,” whispered Jessie.
Liffie obeyed, and when the half-opened door revealed intense darkness outside, a feeling of horror caused their very flesh to creep.
“How I wish I hadn’t stayed! I’ll never do it again!” whispered poor Ruth in the tones of a child about to be punished.
“What’s that!” exclaimed Jessie, with a start that caused Ruth almost to shriek.
“Cats!” said Liffie Lee.
“Impossible!” said Kate.
But it was not impossible, for there, in a corner not far off, were dimly seen two intensely black objects, with backs and tails arranged on the moorish-arch principle, and a species of low thunder issuing from them, suggestive of dynamite in the stomach.