the heavy air. Timokles hesitated, fearing he knew not what. His
eyes could not pierce the deep gloom.

Resolving to see whither the hall led, he groped on, wondering if
this were the place in which the inhabitants of the oasis were wont
to confine prisoners. He came to a door. It opened readily to his
touch, and he passed into what had once been a large dwelling-room.
He stepped softly forward, noting the emptiness and desolation of
the place. The peculiar odor of the air was more noticeable than
before, but it was not till he had reached the middle of the
darkened room, and stood gazing about him, that he perceived at the
farther end, in the shadows, a space of yellowish fawn color, and
then saw manifold dark spots, also, that shaped themselves into a
large, living form.

Timokles drew one quick breath. He softly retreated. Keeping his
eyes fixed on the huge, sleeping leopard, Timokles put out his hand
to take hold of the door through which he had come. His groping
fingers found nothing but the blank wall!

Hastily turning with alarm, Timokles passed his hand over the wall's
surface. Surely the door had been here! There was no handle, no line
in the wall to indicate the existence of a door.

How silently it had swung shut, when he had come through! He
remembered that there had been no noise. He pressed his full force
now against the wall. He tried it softly, cautiously, here and
there, till he had passed over the entire space in which he knew the
door must be, and yet the wall stood apparently blank and whole
before him! The other walls seemed to be solid.