but breathless for three full minutes. But
perceptions stimulated to extra sensibility by apprehension of danger
detected nothing. And his hearing was so keen, he told himself, no
breath could have been drawn in that time without his having knowledge
of it. Still, he knew he was not alone. Somewhere in that encompassing
murk an alien and inimical intelligence skulked.

Baffled by powers of patience and immobility that mocked his own, he
moved again, edging toward the entrance-hall, a progress so gradual he
could have sworn it must be imperceptible. Yet he had a feeling, a
suspicion, perhaps merely a fear, that he did not stir a finger without
the other's knowledge.

A hand extended about a foot encountered the back of an upholstered
chair, which he identified by touch. Assuming the chair to be occupying
its usual position, he need only continue in a line parallel with the
line of its back to find the entrance-hall in about six paces.

Within three he stopped dead, as if paralysed by sudden instinctive
perception of that other presence close by.

Whether he had drawn near to it, inch by inch, or whether it, seeing
him about to make good his escape, had crept up on him, he could not
say. He only knew that it was there, within arm's-length, waiting,
tense, prepared, and somehow deadly in its animosity.

Digging the nails deep into the palms of his hands, until the pain
relieved his nervous tension, he waited once more, one minute, two,
three.

But nothing ...

Then very slowly he lifted an arm, and swept it before him right and
left. At one point of the arc, a trifle to his left, his finger-tips
brushed something. He thought he detected a stir in the darkness, a
stifled sound, stepped forward quickly, clawing the air, and caught
between his fingers a wisp of some material, like silk, sheer and
glace, a portion of some garment.

Simultaneously he heard a smothered cry, of anger or alarm, and the
night seemed to split and be rent into fragments by a thousand shooting
needles of coloured flame.

Smitten brutally on the point of the jaw, his head jerked back, he
reeled and fell against a chair, which went to the floor with a muffled
crash.

X

BUT AS A MUSTARD SEED...

Duchemin woke up in his bed, glare of sunlight in his eyes.

From the latter circumstance he reckoned, rather groggily, it must be
about the middle of the forenoon; for not till about that time did the
sun work round to the windows.