Withdrawing my hand, I put the fingers in my mouth and sucked the still half-lifeless digits. Meanwhile, the lamp flickered alight; Belleville took up his revolver and resumed his task. I watched him hungrily. The blue shaft once more began to play and stab the walls. It darted hither and thither, like an incandescent elf, dancing up and down and round and round, and into every hole and cranny of the room. But it did not find me out, because moving round and round the table as Belleville moved I always kept behind him. But this could not last for ever, and, indeed, the end came too soon. Belleville uttered suddenly a savage curse and swung round full upon me. Perhaps I had made some sound that had betrayed me to his nerve-strained senses. I do not know. He cried, "Ha! at last," and fired point blank. The bullet whistled past my temple. The smoke of the discharge flamed blue in the rays of the lanthorn. I fell upon the table and thrust it like a ram with all my force against my adversary. He fired again and once more missed, but ere he could repeat his tactics the table struck him and the lanthorn fell. He staggered back and the lanthorn rolled underneath the table. I pushed the table forward and kicked the lanthorn with my foot. It went out. Belleville, recovering his equilibrium, stood like an image peering straight at me and listening. Yet he did not see me: and for the moment I was safe, for the table was between us. But the man had brains. Judging swiftly where I was most likely to be, he gave an unexpected spring and vaulted clear across the obstacle. I had just time to step back ere he landed. He swung his arms about like flails, but failing immediately to find me, his ugly temper must needs flare up in curses. It was just what I needed to cover the sound of my movements. I evaded him and returned to the table, and then he knew not where I was. In a few moments he realised his folly and, once more relapsing into silence, he took up his lamp. But the oil had either been wasted or was exhausted. The wick refused to catch. He groaned out a blasphemous oath on this discovery, and rushed down to the cabinet, from which first he had procured the lanthorn. I followed him as swiftly as I could, having care to make no sound, and while he was filling the lamp with oil from a beautifully carven vase of solid gold Egyptian ware of the fifteenth dynasty, I once more put my hand upon the hilt of his revolver, which he had momentarily laid upon the edge of the cabinet. But this time I found I could hold and use it, too. Shadow-like, I caught it up and put my finger on the trigger. Then I backed away a yard or two and leaned upon a case of glass and steel. "Belleville!" said I. He started as though an adder had stung him, then seeing his pistol gone, he let both vase and lanthorn fall in his dismay and swung on heel to face my voice.