Have you never attempted to fall asleep while from some distant spot there came with maddening regularity the drip-drip-drip of water? If you have, then perhaps you can share in a degree at least the feeling of Johnny Thompson as he sat there alone, a prisoner of other centuries, listening to that baffling sound within the walls.
Yet, impossible as it may seem, he was able for whole moments to forget the entire situation. In those moments he saw again his camp on the Rio Hondo. He talked with Pant and laughed with him at his ridiculous donkey. He urged his Caribs on to more splendid efforts, saw the piles of magnificent timber, mahogany, the red lure, piling up, and counted the days that must pass before they would send these logs plunging in the river, fill their boom and go drifting silently away.
Yes, there were blessed moments of relief; but always the haunting darkness, the nerve-racking drip-drip came pressing its way once more into his consciousness.
What was happening during all this time outside the door that had so mysteriously closed? The scream which Johnny had heard was Jean’s. Anxious for his safety, she had watched that hole in the wall from the time he disappeared. The green flash of light which appeared at the moment when his torch flashed on had alarmed her; but this was nothing to the thing she saw a moment later. Slowly, silently, as if impelled by a powerful invisible force, the stone, which for centuries had closed the opening, was slowly rising. The opening was half closed before she could recall her scattered senses. Then, without a thought for her own safety, she sprang for the entrance. It was Roderick who, with cooler judgment, had pulled her back. Then it was that she gave forth that piercing scream.
After the scream, white-faced and silent, she had stood watching until with an almost inaudible thud the massive rock dropped into place.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Roderick said reassuringly. “I’ll push it open as Johnny did.”
Seizing the heavy walking stick, he pushed it against the door just as Johnny had done. But, though he heaved away at it with all his might, he did not move it so much as a fraction of an inch. Nor did the girl’s slight, but frantic strength, added to his, avail. The door was closed, closed and sealed for all eternity so far as they could tell.