My Library

trinity moved slowly around that saucer on the floor; their eyes—their great, horny, bulging eyes—all the while scintillating and flashing with the very essence of intense malignity— malignity as of a devil! The female portion of the company I fear may never recover from the shock that night received. They did not faint, or scream, or swoon, as perhaps it might have been suspected they would under such diabolic circumstances, simply, however, for the reason that the tension of soul and nerve was altogether too severe and great to permit, even for an instant, the reaction which is an absolute prerequisite to relief by or through the methods indicated. “Probably the length of time that elapsed from the shriek of our comrade, till the final disappearance of the three monsters, did not exceed three minutes, yet in that brief space we had undergone years of terror. “Truly, the real lapse of time is not to be reckoned by the beats of the clock, but only by sensations and heart-throbs. Mai, at the termination of the time specified, rose from his stool, took a small basket from his portmanteau, and then fearlessly seizing the things, one at a time, he carefully doubled up their legs under them, and placed them in it. Then taking the two crystal bottles already alluded to, he placed them lengthwise on the chart, with their necks and apertures facing each other, after which he