Lanyard conjured up to the eye of his mind the plot of the library he had studied at Morphew's instance. According to it--as memory served--the window he had broken through was the one nearest a wall in which (close by Lanyard's head it ought to be) a double doorway opened in from the main hall of the house, with a switch for the ceiling light conveniently at hand.
Gathering himself together, Lanyard rose in a reckless bound and lunged blindly toward the door, found it where he had thought it ought to be, and began to grope for the switch.
His first fumblings were wide of their mark, but he persevered, heart in mouth, expecting every moment to see the black backwards of the room stabbed by a jet of crimson and orange flame--perhaps to be lucky enough to hear the accompanying blast But the other held his fire, no doubt shrewdly guessing what Lanyard was up to and reckoning it the part of wisdom to wait for the light to make his aim sure; the advantage would be all to him when it came, for he would know approximately where to look for Lanyard, whereas the latter had no clue whatsoever to the whereabouts of his adversary.
His fingers at length hit on the switch, a great central chandelier sprayed the room with radiance.
Lanyard occupied it alone, at least seemed to: the library was over-furnished with huge, old-fashioned pieces, any one of which might easily have been serving the safe-breaker as a temporary screen, from behind any one of which Lanyard had to look for his coup-de-grâce to come at any instant. . . . Or, he dared not be unmindful, that might come through one of the windows. Doubt of his temper could now no longer exist in Morphew's intelligence. The one slender chance Lanyard had of eluding a bullet from either the outlaw in the room or the assassins outside lay in keeping constantly on the move.
He quartered the library with swift strides, bent almost double, zig-zagging from the shelter of one article of furniture to that of the next, and finding the other man nowhere. In this manner he circled a massive table of old oak that occupied the middle of the floor and was passing the violated safe when the toe of one boot struck something that incontinently, in effect, came to life, and slithered away across the hardwood like a serpent of light.