“Yes, let us try straight over on the other side.”
At that moment Rex trod on another skull. He stumbled against the Duke, who dropped the torch with a clatter. The light went out and the heavy darkness closed in upon them.
The blackness was so intense that they could almost imagine that they felt it pressing on their hands and faces.
“Sorry,” gasped Rex, I trod on some bird’s brain-box.”
“Stay where you are,” ordered the Duke, sharply. “Let me find the torch.” He groped on the floor, his fingers came in contact with the bearded head. He kicked it aside impatiently, and his fingers found the torch. As he stood up he pressed the button... no light appeared... he pressed it again. Still nothing but that inky darkness pressing round them.
For a moment he said nothing, as all the horror of the situation dawned on his mind. How was it possible to find their way in this impenetrable blackness without a ray of light? The atmosphere would sap their vitality and deaden their power of thought.... In a few hours they would go mad. Shrieking through the hollow darkness, frantically trying turning after turning in these miles of caves. The horror of thirst would come upon them in this awful heat — already he found himself passing his tongue over his dry lips. Better even to go back, if they could find their way, and face the rifles of the Red Guards in the morning than the creeping certainty of insanity as well as death in this vast grave, to be found, perhaps years later, mummified like the rest, clawing the ground in an extremity of thirst and terror.
He turned to where he knew Rex to be standing. Monseigneur le Duc de Richleau had never yet lost his head, and he knew that now, if ever, his life depended upon his keeping it, so he spoke quietly.
“Have you the string, Rex?”
“Yes, but why don’t you show a light?”
“It seems to be broken.”