With the vanishing of the man through the doorway the lifelessness of the place which had been momentarily broken descended upon it again. The still air hummed with the somnolent drone of myriads of winged insects. The hush of the surrounding forest seemed to crowd down upon it. The very breathlessness of the day seemed to suggest the utter impossibility of stirring life.
After a moment, the deathly silence was broken. A sound came hard in the wake of the passing man. It was a curious, half-stifled cry, and it came from the direction of the open doorway. It was low, inarticulate, but it was human. It suggested much and betrayed nothing. Then as it died out the engulfing silence descended once more and it remained unbroken.
The wide central hall was unlit by any visible window, yet the light was perfectly distributed and ample. Furthermore it was the light of day without one gleam of the dazzling sunshine.
It was a spacious apartment, lofty and square. Its walls were covered with rich hangings of simple eastern design. They were unusually tasteful and delicate, and obviously the handiwork of home manufacture. The floor of the room was of polished yellow pine littered with a wealth of natural furs without any mountings. Every skin was native to the north of Alaska, and the variety was extensive. In the centre of the room stood a large, open, log fire set up on a built hearth, above which rose a chimney passing straight up through the timbered ceiling in the fashion of an inverted funnel. For all the summer heat the fire was alight, smouldering pleasantly, a heap of white wood ash yielding a delightful aroma as the thin spiral of smoke drifted leisurely up into the mouth of the funnel above it.
About the walls stood several low couches. They were loaded with silken cushions adorned in a fashion similar to the hangings upon the wall with a lavish display of the representations of brilliant-hued flowers, and birds, amongst which chrysanthemum, wistaria, and longbilled, long-legged storks were very prominent.
The only other furnishings in the place were a magnificent pair of oriental vases standing on carved wood plinths, a large bookcase that was also a desk with an armchair before it, and two great, manifold wooden screens with elaborate, incised designs decorating their panels.
In the shelter of one of the latter a small woman was seated on a couch surrounded by the materials of the delicate embroidery she was engaged upon. She was seated with her feet tucked under her, and a book lay in her lap. But she was neither reading nor sewing now. Her dark eyes were raised alertly. They were gazing steadily at an angle of the room where a curtain hung in heavy folds over what was clearly a doorway.
The solitary occupant of the room was not young. She was nearing middle life, yet she bore small enough traces of her years. She was pretty for all the large tortoise-shell rimmed glasses she was wearing. Her jet black hair, dressed closely to her shapely head, bore not a trace of greying, and the small mouth and softly tinted cheeks were as fresh and delicate as a young girl’s.
At the moment a keen look of enquiry was revealed through her large glasses as she regarded the covered doorway. Nor was her look without a suggestion of unease. For a sound had reached her a moment before, which, in the silence of the house about her, had suggested a cry—a cry of pain. Even a call for help.