ere forced on for some distance. As they retreated, the way
become easier, and fewer and fewer of the beings impeded the channel
along which they moved, though in front of them and on all sides,
above, beneath, they were pressed by the hordes.
"They are forcing us to some place they want us to go," said Lambert
desperately.
"We can do nothing more," replied the girl.
Lambert felt her quiet confidence in him, and that as long as they
were together, all was well.
"Maybe they can kill us, somehow," he said.
And now, Lambert felt the way was clear to the rear. There was a
sudden rush of the creatures, and needlelike fields were impelled
viciously into the spaces the two humans occupied.
Madge cried out in pain, and Lambert shouted. The throng drew away
from them as suddenly as it had surged forward, and an instant later
the pair, clinging together, felt that they were falling, falling,
falling....
"Are you all right, Madge?"
"Yes, John."
But he knew she was suffering. How long they fell he did not know, but
they stopped at last. No sooner had they come to rest than they were
assailed with sensations of pain which made both cry out in anguish.
There, in the spot where they had been thrust by the hordes, they felt
that there was some terrific vibration which racked and tore at their
invisible forms continuously, sending them into spasms of sharp
misery.
They both were forced to give vent to their feelings by loud cries.
But they could not command their movements any longer. When they tried
to get away, their limbs moved but they felt that they remained in the
same spot.
* * * * *
The pain shook every fraction of their souls.
"We--we are in some pit of hell, into which they have thrown us,
John," gasped Madge.
He knew she was shivering with the torture of that great vibration
from which there was no escape, that they were in a prison-pit of
Hell's Dimension.
"I--oh--John--I'm dying!"
But he was powerless to help her. He suffered as much as she. Yet
there was no weakening of his sensations; he was in as much torture as
he had been at the start. He knew that they could not die and could
never escape from this misery of hell.
Their cries seemed to disturb the vacuum about. Lambert, shivering and
shaking with pain, was aware that great eyes, similar to those which
they had thought they saw above, were now upon them. Squeaks were
impressed upon him, squeaks
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