But nobody came. There I was in the sexagonal room, with the gold
dragons with their jeweled eyes leering at me.
A dull anger welled up within me. On every side, mentally as well as
physically, I seemed baffled, hemmed in. I determined, at any risk to
myself, to get out into the library. I took two steps towards the door
through which Juanita had gone, when I heard a sharp snap just behind
me.
I whipped round, clutching the only weapon I had--which was a brass
knuckle-duster in the side pocket of my coat, and then I stood
absolutely still.
One of the dragon panels had rolled up like a theater curtain, and
standing in what appeared to be the end of a passage, was the great
brute Mulligan, with a Winchester rifle at his shoulder, covering me.
As a man does in the presence of imminent danger, I swerved out of the
line of the deadly barrel.
As I did so--click! A second panel disappeared, and I was confronted by
Gideon Morse, his hands in the pockets of his dinner jacket, his mouth
faintly smiling, his eyes inscrutable.
Imagine it! let the picture appear to you of the fool, Thomas Kirby,
trapped like a rat!
Once, twice I swallowed in my throat, and I swear it wasn't from fear
but only from an enormous, immeasurable disgust.