Henry, with his shuddering dislike of seeing even a goldfish injured or slain, shrank far more shudderingly from being injured or slain himself. The horrid wrench that physical assault was—and then, perhaps, the sharp break with life, the plunge into a blank unknown—and never to see again on this earth the person whom one very greatly loved....
As has been said, Henry was not brave. But he was, after all, a journalist on the scent of a story, and that takes one far; he was also a hunter in pursuit of a hated quarry, and that takes one farther.
Henry crossed himself, muttered a prayer and advanced down the passage, his torch a lantern before his feet, his nerves shivering like telegraph wires in a winter wind, but fortunately not making the same sound.
[37]
On and on and on. It was cold down there, like death, and bitter like death, and dark. Rats scuffled and leaped. Once Henry trod on one of them; it squeaked and fled, leaving him sick and cold. His imagination was held and haunted by the small quiet pastor; he seemed, on the whole, the worst of the four miscreants. A sinister air of deadly badness there had been about him.... Lines ran in and out of Henry's memory like cold mice. Something about “a grim Genevan minister walked by with anxious scowl.” ... Horrid.... It made you sweat to think of him. Then on the passage there opened another passage, running sharply into it from the right. That was odd. Which should be followed?
Henry swung his flashlight up each in turn, and both seemed the same narrow blackness. He advanced a few steps, and on his left yet another turning struck out from the main tunnel.
“My God,” Henry reflected, “the place is a regular catacomb.”