"Has she not spoken?"
"Not a word. My mind misgives me that something very dreadful must have happened to her."
"And that odd noise!"
"Still goes on. Somehow, it curdles the very blood in my veins to hear it."
The man took the crow-bar, and with some difficulty succeeded in introducing it between the door and the side of the wall—still it required great strength to move it, but it did move, with a harsh, crackling sound.
"Push it!" cried he who was using the bar, "push the door at the same time."
The younger man did so. For a few moments the massive door resisted. Then, suddenly, something gave way with a loud snap—it was a part of the lock,—and the door at once swung wide open.
How true it is that we measure time by the events which happen within a given space of it, rather than by its actual duration.
To those who were engaged in forcing open the door of the antique chamber, where slept the young girl whom they named Flora, each moment was swelled into an hour of agony; but, in reality, from the first moment of the alarm to that when the loud cracking noise heralded the destruction of the fastenings of the door, there had elapsed but very few minutes indeed.
"It opens—it opens," cried the young man.