“Or, from our viewpoint, its worthlessness.”
As he spoke, with no sound an orifice opened in the wall behind the idol. In its cavernous depths, dark and forbidding, Roger guessed that the stone had withdrawn up or sidewise, or had turned on a pivot.
He and Tip, hesitating, were prodded gruffly forward.
Into the decreasing light they moved—were forced to move.
The darkness became abruptly intense. The noiseless door had closed!
Echoing still to their last footstep, the silence slowly became complete.
“Science!” grunted Tip, “Without no scientific impediments.”
“Implements.” Roger spoke from habit, still too dazed to feel, with completeness, the horror that must soon come.
And far away, the last exhalation of the “s” he had spoken was flung mockingly back by echo, a hiss of multiplied duration, fainter as it echoed to and fro.
Trying to hold calm, Roger felt an impulse to scream, to beat on the callous stone, to beg for mercy.