a minute, for I was feeling more and more overcome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that blazing forest.
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 tomorrow 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!”