Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/351

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The Idiot
341

frenzy and galloping in order to capture us and wipe us out—in order to kill us. And they have killed us, for you and I have only made a hole in our coffins. But though this hatred that they felt for us is bigger than they felt for Bonaparte, and more plain and practical than they would feel for Jack the Ripper, yet it is not we whom the people of this place hate most.”

A cold and quivering impatience continued to crawl up Turnbull’s spine; he had never felt so near to superstition and supernaturalism, and it was not a pretty sort of superstition either.

“There is another man more fearful and hateful,” went on MacIan, in his low monotone voice, “and they have buried him even deeper. God knows how they did it, for he was let in by neither door nor window, nor lowered through any opening above. I expect these iron handles that we both hate have been part of some damned machinery for walling him up. He is there. I have looked through the hole at him; but I cannot stand looking at him long, because his face is turned away from me and he does not move.”

All Turnbull’s unnatural and uncompleted feelings found their outlet in rushing to the aperture and looking into the unknown room.

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