I mounted the altar-steps, the distant light behind me still feebly guiding me; I ran round to the right, and heaved a great sigh of relief to find my hopes verified, and that the altar of San Domenico was as the altar of other churches I had known.

It stood a pace or so from the wall, and behind it there was just such narrow hiding-room as I had looked to find.
I paused at the mouth of that black opening, and even as I paused, something hard that gave out a metallic sound fell at the far end of the church.

Instinct told me it was the lock which those miscreants had cut from the door.

I waited for no more, but like a beast scudding to cover I plunged into that black space.
Madonna, wrapped in my cloak as she was, I set down upon the ground, and then I crept forward on hands and knees and thrust out my head, trusting to the darkness to envelop me.
I waited thus for some seconds, my heart beating now against my ribs as if it would hurl itself out of my bosom, my head and face on fire with the fever of reaction that succeeded my late cold pallor.
From where I watched it was impossible to see the door hidden in the black gloom.

Away in the centre of the church, an island of light in that vast sea of blackness, stood the catafalque with its four wax torches.