Hastily turning with alarm, Timokles passed his hand over the wall's surface. 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. It was immovable. Nowhere in it could he discover any opening. The beautiful beast, the waking of which meant so much to Timokles, stirred a little. The claws of one foot were drawn up. Then the foot was relaxed again. The leopard continued to slumber. High above Timokles were two small windows, closed by wooden shutters. The half-ruined flat roof showed holes here and there where the old palm branches of its construction, covered with mats and plastered with mud, had given way. Had it not been for these holes in the roof, Timokles would hardly have had light enough to perceive the leopard, for the wooden shutters of the two windows prevented their being of much service. Even with the roof's holes, the room was dark. The rents in the roof were much too far above Timokles to help him to escape; however, and he reflected that if the roof had been lower, the place would hardly have been chosen for the confinement of a wild beast, the present height of the walls preventing the escape of the leopard, as well as that of any Christian. The leopard stirred again! "He wakes!" thought Timokles, summoning his courage for that waking. But the great cat only moved his head to a somewhat more comfortable position, and continued to sleep.