The next instant there came a rattle as of tools being displaced as a dark form arose. Followed a blinding spurt of flame and a deafening report right, it seemed, in his very face. Instinctively, he winced away, with a burning pain in his left ear and, ducking down, with deadly calculation he fired upwards twice as he did so.
The detonation in the galvanized-iron structure was terrific. When the echoes gradually died away, a curious scraping, threshing noise, monotonous in its regularity, succeeded, coupled with a horrid, long-drawn, liquid gurgle, as of water issuing from the neck of an inverted bottle.
These ominous sounds, too, eventually ceased, and the silence of the night settled over all once more. Carey clutched Benton with a shiver, and his teeth chattered like castanets.
“Is—is he—dead—d’you think?” he quavered.
“Don’t know,” returned Benton in a low voice. “Sufferin’ Moses! my ear’s hurtin’ me somethin’ fierce. I’m bleedin’ like a stuck pig. Keep you well to the side, there, when I flash the light in. You never know what’s goin’ to come off.”
Cautiously he pressed the spring of his torch and, as the little halo of radiance penetrated the obscurity, he gave a quick, searching look. With a satisfied sigh, he released the button and turned in the darkness to his companion.
“All right, Carey,” he said reassuringly. “You can light up again now.”
With shaking fingers, the other produced a match and, relighting his lamp, cast its rays into the opening. He beheld a sight that was to remain in his memory for many a day. With a cry of horror, he tumbled back, the lantern falling from his nerveless grasp.
“Oh, my God!” he cried. “Oh, Lord!”
Ellis stooped and picked up the smoking globe.