Surely the door had been here! There was no handle, no line
in the wall to indicate the existence of a door.
How silently it had swung shut, when he had come through! He
remembered that there had been no noise. He pressed his full force
now against the wall. He tried it softly, cautiously, here and
there, till he had passed over the entire space in which he knew the
door must be, and yet the wall stood apparently blank and whole
before him! The other walls seemed to be solid.
With beating heart, Timokles pushed once more at the partition. It
remained firm. Trembling with the shock of his sudden entrapping,
Timokles looked toward the room's far end. It was as he thought. The
beast was not chained. The sleeping leopard's spotted hide heaved
softly yet, with undisturbed breathing, and as Timokles watched
across the space, he remembered the ominous words spoken to him on
his entrance into this building: "Go in, O Christian! Others have
gone before thee!"
For a time, overcome by the horror of his situation, Timokles leaned
against the partition, the door through which had so mysteriously
disappeared. His eyes, between quick glances at the sleeping
leopard, searched with desperate intensity every part of the room,
for some means of escape.
"Is there no place?" he questioned.
Stealthily he crossed the apartment, and felt of the opposite wall.
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