I had been working like this for half an hour and had finished
three panels, when, as ill-luck would have it, I turned round
on hearing a muttered exclamation from the viscount.
"I am stifling," he said. "All those mirrors are sending out
an infernal heat! Do you think you will find that spring soon?
If you are much longer about it, we shall be roasted alive!"
I was not sorry to hear him talk like this. He had not said a word
of the forest and I hoped that my companion's reason would hold
out some time longer against the torture. But he added:
"What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until
eleven to-morrow evening. If we can't get out of here and go
to her assistance, at least we shall be dead before her!
Then Erik's mass can serve for all of us!"
And he gulped down a breath of hot air that nearly made him faint.
As I had not the same desperate reasons as M. le Vicomte for
accepting death, I returned, after giving him a word of encouragement,
to my panel, but I had made the mistake of taking a few steps while
speaking and, in the tangle of the illusive forest, I was no longer
able to find my panel for certain! I had to begin all over again,
at random, feeling, fumbling, groping.
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