And as a dawning perception of the truth came to him, as falteringly he advanced a step toward the mystic beam, he saw that one side of the case had been shattered—he saw the broken glass upon the floor; and in the dense shadow behind and under the beam of light, vaguely he saw a dull red object.
It moved—it seemed to live! It moved away from the case and in the direction of the eastern windows.
“My God!” whispered Mostyn; “it’s the Prophet’s slipper!”
And wildly, blindly, he fired down the room. Later he knew that he had fired in panic, for nothing human was or could be in the place; yet his shot was not without effect. In the instant of its flash, something struck sharply against the dimly seen blind of one of the east windows; he heard the crash of broken glass.
He leapt to the switch and flooded the room with light. A fear of what it might hold possessed him, and he turned instantly.
Hard by the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and midway between the case and the first easterly window lay the slipper. A bell was ringing somewhere. His shot probably had aroused the attention of the policeman. Someone was clamouring upon the door of the Museum, too. Mostyn raced forward and raised the blind—that toward which the slipper had seemed to move.
The lower pane of the window was smashed. Blood was trickling down upon the floor from the jagged edges of the glass.
“Hullo there! Open the door! Open the door!”
Bells were going all over the place now; sounds of running footsteps came from below; but Mostyn stood staring at the broken window and at the solid iron bars which protected it without, which were intact, substantial—which showed him that nothing human could possibly have entered.
Yet the case was shattered, the holy slipper lay close beside him upon the floor, and from the broken window-pane blood was falling—drip-drip-drip...