on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of many members of the human race!
Eleven o’clock tomorrow evening!
And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to the stone steps, for the light in the trapdoor overhead that led to the room of mirrors was now extinguished; and we repeated to ourselves:
“Eleven o’clock tomorrow evening!”
At last, I found the staircase. But, suddenly I drew myself up on the first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind:
“What is the time?”
Ah, what was the time? … For, after all, eleven o’clock tomorrow evening might be now, might be this very moment! Who could tell us the time? We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days … for years … since the beginning of the world. Perhaps we should be blown up then and there! Ah, a sound! A crack!
“Did you hear that? …
There, in the corner …
good heavens! …
Like a sound of machinery! …
Again! …
Oh, for a light! …
Perhaps it’s the machinery that is to blow everything up! …
I tell you, a cracking sound: are you deaf?”