It was like the yelling of a thousand demons.
Suddenly it swelled to an absolute pandemonium of sound, and she shrank
appalled. The sudden, paralysing conviction flashed upon her that the
palace had been deserted by its guards and was in the hands of
murderers. She seemed to hear them swarming everywhere, unopposed, yet
lusting for blood, while she, a defenceless woman, stood cowering
against a door.
Sheer physical horror seized upon her. The mercy of the mob! The mercy
of the mob! The words ran red-hot in her brain. She knew well what she
might expect from them. They would tear her limb from limb.
She could not face it. She must escape. Even now surely she could
escape. Back in her room, only the length of the corridor away, was
deliverance. Surely she could reach it in time! Like a hunted creature
she gathered herself together, and, turning, fled along the way she had
come.
She rushed at length, panting, into her room, and, without a pause or
glance around, fled into the bedroom beyond. It was here, it was here
that her deliverance lay, safe hidden in a secret drawer.
The place was in darkness save for the light that streamed after her
through the open door. Shaking in every limb, near to fainting, she
groped her way across, found--almost fell against--her little
writing-table, and sank upon her knees before it--for the moment too
spent to move.
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