I shot the beam of the torch across the wall from corner to corner. Nothing moved. I went to the cold fireplace—feeling the eyes of a multitude of ghosts upon me as I moved—and ran the flash over it. I even knelt and peered up the gut of the chimney. Nothing. I found myself shuddering. One more sweep of the torch around the vault of the hall, and then I ran (I admit it freely) for the secret door. Pulling it to behind me, I raced up the narrow steps and with pounding heart slammed the upper one also. I saw then that it was a swinging panel, that looked much like any one of the other panels in the hall. This secret must be a relic of the bad old days, when Exeter Castle was young and the nobility was riddled with treachery, intrigue, and evil.
After two minutes of cogitation, I went and aroused Colonel Bedford. He listened to my tale in silence. Then, "This might be serious," he said. "Let's wake the others."
We did, and in the short time before the early dawn of summer gilded the east windows, we combed that castle from roof to cellars; but the incredible fact which we had uncovered remained, not to be dispelled or explained by any means in our power.
Geoff Exeter, our poor gallant blind Geoff, had disappeared....
CHAPTER XXI
I truly believe that that day was the longest and worst I ever managed to live through.
The aliens who ringed the castle did not attack in force: but they maintained a kind of sullen, dangerous watchfulness over the place, and every time one of us showed himself at a window, a rifle cracked and a slug spread itself on a wall nearby or buried itself in the ceiling above him.
"What are they doing?" Marion asked me again and again. "Why are they waiting?" And I could not tell her.
The night came, but our sleep was no more than an occasional leaden doze which left us unrefreshed, with gummy aching eyes and minds gnawed by worry.