The wind howled and tore at the locked doors, making them creak and groan; the thunder shook the building; and at every fresh convulsion Visconti shrieked aloud in unison.
The lightning, flashing blue through the crevices, seemed to play about that inner door, and he cowered from the sight, and bit at his fingers in a fierce endeavor to resist the madness seizing him.
It was not so very long ago that he had turned the great key behind him in that ponderous door, and ridden from the deed he had done, shouting through the midnight. He thought then never to return, and here he was, thrust in alone, and his madness on him. Visconti staggered from his seat, groping blindly.
The blackness seemed to whirl with faces and clutching, tearing fingers; he knew not where he was--he could see nothing--blackness and space--seemingly unbounded.
Another flash revealed to him that he had drawn near that inner door--in the instant it was visible; it seemed to open and shut--quickly.
Visconti fell back against the wall, and wrestled with his terrors as if they were some living thing, and again with savage teeth he bit into his flesh.
But the floor was opening beneath him, opening into gulfs deep and still deeper, bottomless.
"I am mad!" said Visconti, and shrieked and howled with the storm. It did not help him; he heard hurrying feet through all the alarm of the tempest, hurrying to him behind that locked door. Let him not look, for what he feared to see the dark could not conceal--and now they were at the door, and now they were fitting a key.
Then he stood, hushed, with bated breath, eyes starting into the blackness, listening. And through the dark he heard the creaking and twisting of the key, the slow opening of a heavy door, the groaning of the hinges as it opened, slowly.
The wind howled in a wild gust, and suddenly through the narrow window there showed the black sky torn in two by the lightning flash. As it circled the chamber, Visconti raised his head--the door was open. And through the opening two faces peered--they were not human faces--Visconti knew them when they were.
Utter blackness followed upon the vivid flash, and the thunder crashed and rolled, and at last the rain came with a mighty roar.