The switch is at the other end. Fortunately I know where to step, for I
have been going backwards and forwards here for the last forty years.
Mind follow me carefully."
Thereupon, at each successive step, he warned the other what he ought to
do, guiding him along in his obliging way without the faintest tremor in
his voice.
"Don't let go of me, turn to the left.--Now we merely have to go straight
ahead.--Only, wait a moment, a barrier intersects the gallery, and there
is a gate.--There we are! I'm opening the gate, you hear?--Follow me,
I'll go first."
Morange quietly stepped into the void, amid the darkness. And, without a
cry, he fell. Alexandre who was close in the rear, almost touching him so
as not to lose him, certainly detected the void and the gust which
followed the fall, as with sudden horror the flooring failed beneath
them; but force of motion carried him on, he stepped forward in his turn,
howled and likewise fell, head over heels. Both were smashed below, both
killed at once. True, Morange still breathed for a few seconds.
Alexandre, for his part, lay with his skull broken to pieces and his
brains scattered on the very spot where Blaise had been picked up.
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