That consideration could only be described as fear for the future, and it had been forcibly thrust upon him by the fright he had received while he was examining the hole in the floor.

In order to neutralise it, Marzio had tried the experiment of braving what he considered to be a momentary terror by obstinately studying the details of the plan he intended to execute.

To his surprise he found that he returned to the same conclusion as before.

He came back to that unaccountable fear of the future as surely as a body thrown upwards falls again to the earth.

He went over it all in his mind again, twice, three times, twenty times.