I also had thought that I heard a movement; which was not rats. I struck a light as rapidly as my blundering fingers would permit.
“Come to the banisters, hurry! If anyone is going to act upon my excellent advice, and is coming up the stairs, let’s have a chance of seeing who it is.”
In my anxiety not to baulk her impatience I hastened towards her before the match had properly ignited; as a result, with a little splutter, it went out.
“You idiot! Don’t you know that life and death may hang upon your being able to keep a match alight?”
I knew it as well as she did. The knowledge did not lend to steady my nerves; especially when it was emphasised in such a fashion. I made several ineffectual efforts to induce a match to burn; with one accord they refused to do anything. Uttering an angry ejaculation Pollie struck one of her own.
“Emily, there is someone moving; but they’re not coming up, they’re going down. Then if they won’t come to me I must go to them, that’s all. Mr. Bogey-man, or Miss Daughter-of-the-gods, or whoever you are, if you please, I want a word with you.”
Without giving me a hint of what she intended to do she rushed down the stairs, half-a-dozen at a time. Of course the match she carried was immediately extinguished. I could hear her, undeterred by its extinction, plunging blindly down through the darkness. I succeeded in getting one of my matches to burn. I leaned over the banisters to let her have the benefit of any radiance it might afford. I could see nothing of her. She was on the flight below.
“Pollie! Pollie!” I cried. “Do be careful what you’re doing.”
I could not tell if she heard me. The warning went unheeded if she did. My match went out. Before I could strike another there arose, through the darkness, from the passage below, the most dreadful tumult I had ever heard. Shriek after shriek from Pollie; shrieks as of mortal terror. A growling noise, as of some wild animal in sudden rage. The din of a furious struggle. How long the uproar lasted I cannot say. On a sudden there came a wilder, more piercing scream from Pollie than any which had gone before; the growling grew more furious; there was the sound of a closing door, and all was still.
The death-like silence which followed was of evil omen. The contrast to the discord of a moment back was frightfully significant. I clung to the banisters to help me stand. What had happened to Pollie? What, shortly—at any second! might happen to me? I did not dare to try and think. I felt the handrail slipping from my grasp. Merciful oblivion swept over me. I was conscious of nothing more.