Had Henry been first on the field after all? She turned, held her light high, and looked back. The wire went up to the roof and ran along until she lost it in the darkness. She reflected hopefully that Henry might have seen the wire much farther along, and turned back again. Her fingers were on the switch when a really dreadful thought pricked her. Suppose the switch controlled some horrible explosive! It might turn on a light, most likely it did; but, on the other hand, it might let loose a raging demon of destruction that would blow the whole place to smithereens. It was an unreasonable thought, the sort of thought that one dismisses instantly in the daylight, but which by candlelight in an underground tunnel assumes a certain degree of credibility. “The question is, am I going on or not?” The silence having failed to supply her with an answer, she said viciously, “You’re a worse rabbit than Renata,” shut her eyes, held her breath, and jerked the switch down. Through her closed lids came a red flash. She clung to the switch and waited. A drop of boiling wax guttered down upon her left forefinger. She opened her eyes and saw the steel gate like a black tracery against a lighted space beyond. With a quickly drawn breath of relief she pushed the steel gate, took one step forward, and then stood rigid, listening to the muffled yet insistent whir of an alarm bell. After one horrified moment she pulled the door towards her again. The sound ceased. Jane considered. As a result of her consideration she turned out the electric light, opened the gate, slipped through, and closed it again so quickly that the bell was hardly heard. She did not allow it to latch, and, stooping, set a piece of broken brick to hold it ajar. The candlelight seemed very inadequate, but she decided that she must make it do, and holding it well up in front of her, she came through a brick arch into a long chamber with walls of stone. Jane looked about her with ignorant, widely opened eyes. She had never been in a laboratory, but she knew that this must be one. The printed page does not exist for nothing. The vague yellow light flickered on strange cylindrical shapes and was flung back by glass jars and odd twisted retorts. A great many appliances, for which she could find no name, emerged from dense shadow into the uncertain dusk. “It’s like a mediæval torture chamber—only worse, colder—more calculating! It’s a sort of torture chamber. I _hate_ it. It gives me the grues,” said Jane. She moved slowly down the room. It was quite dry in here. There was no slime, and there were no slugs. “I hate it a thousand times more than the passages,” she said.