I was scarcely sure this last was not
a vision of my half-mad brain, but a fourth match revealed it
all--above the murdered Coombs, hidden beneath blankets, was the body
of the strange man shot in the upper room. My God! the place was a
charnel house! a spot accursed! I crept back from that ghastly scene
of death as though invisible hands gripped my throat. I fairly choked
with the unutterable horror which overcame me. And yet I knew I must
act, must go on to the end. Even as I crouched there, trembling and
unmanned, seeing visions in the darkness, hearing imaginary sounds, my
thought leaped back to the girl upstairs. It was the one remembrance
which kept me sane. It was not the dead, but the living, I had to
fear, and it was not in my nature to shrink back from any man. I could
feel the courage returning, the leap of hot blood through my veins as I
straightened up.
I risked one more match to make certain of the opening through the
wall, dimly glimpsed beyond the berths. My eyes were not deceived;
here was a second wood-supported passage, unblocked so far as I could
perceive, but black as pitch. I held the flaming splinter aloft,
anxiously scanning the few feet thus revealed, but as it sputtered out,
the red ash dropping to the floor, I felt renewed confidence that I was
alone, unobserved.
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