There was something
else there, too, Sophy." He moistened his lips, and looked at me
with dilated eyes.
"What?" I asked; "in God's name, what?"
"The thief," said Nicholas Jelnik.
CHAPTER XVI
THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW
I was taken with a cold grue.
"Is it--murder?" It seemed to me that the still room shook and
echoed to the barely whispered word, that the candles stirred and
flickered as in a wind of passing wings.
"Not in the sense you mean," he replied. "But whatever it may be,
Sophy, this thing has got to be met and faced by us two together. It
concerns you now, as well as me." He stood up as he spoke. "And
now," he asked, "are you strong enough to come with me?"
I gathered the living spirit within me and looked him in his eyes.
"Yes," I said steadily.
"Allah! but here is a woman a man may serve without shame to his
beard!" quoth The Jinnee, wagging his old white head. And with Boris
stretched beside him he resigned himself to wait with the tireless
patience of the East.
If the other passages had been narrow, that which we now entered was
worse. It was so narrow that the wall on each side seemed about to
close in and crush us, like those frightful sliding walls that
became a living coffin for the victims of medieval cruelty.
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