? ? ? ? Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperture in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of the thumb-lever upon the side of the case.
? ? ? ? For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole, then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units. Those last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds of my life. Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly interminable intervals of time?
? ? ? ? Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!
? ? ? ? I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited-- there had been no appreciable effect upon the lock's mechanism. Could it be that my theory was entirely wrong?
? ? ? ? Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did the door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back into the wall--there was no hallucination here.
? ? ? ? Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its right a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that paralleled the outer wall.
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