‘The pointer is quivering on the wall.’

He does not understand, and stares perplexedly at the tall gilded fellow standing in front of him. His brain was scoured smooth a long time ago, and burns like fire. He directs the arrows. Not one second of his life may be spent on anything else. The arrows demand it. What is it they come in here to say?

‘What?’

The gilded man bows.

‘The pointer is quivering on the wall.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘There’s somebody beneath us.’

He does not ask again. He did not listen to the answer. He must direct the arrows that are scouring the walls of his brain. Everything else must be seen to by others. He stares at them anxiously when they come in to him.

The gilded official counts to three, then says, ‘We are tunnelling, but we can’t find them. The pointer shows that someone is tunnelling beneath everything. But we haven’t found them.’

The message is lost. His brain is on fire from the never-ending stream of arrows. He has to watch them the whole time. The arrows demand it. They are bewitched.

The man in front of the chair waits, then he says, ‘But death will cleanse the house.’

The man in the chair is not listening to him. What is it they come in here to say? It has nothing to do with him. He must direct the arrows. Other matters must be seen to by others. He is past hope.

He looks blankly at the gilded man, who bows and leaves.

This is where it is going on.

Beneath everything. Nobody searches them out so that they are halted. For every one of them who disappears, another joins in.

This is where they are tunnelling. Hope radiates from them. Hearts beat in much too hard a rhythm. Lungs gasp for air. But they will succeed in the ceaseless tunnelling deep under the centre that shall fall. The wall and the centre shall collapse.

They come from all directions and go underground. They begin far away at the outermost parts of the house and will reach the centre one day. No one knows how many do reach it. People are left lying by the wayside. Stifled cries hover in the passages and turn into air that others must breathe, so crowded is it. Only heat and darkness face them underground.

Deep beneath the crushing weight the ground is quaking so that the pointer somewhere up there on the wall is quivering. What is happening up there? They imagine terrible scenes. What happens when the pointer quivers? Up there they are the masters of life and death.

No sound from them penetrates down here. Only the solitary struggle between what they must and what they do not think they can do.

Can? comes the question harshly and sarcastically.

They submit quickly to the demand.

No, no, I know I must….

A solitary struggle in each solitary mind.

Deep beneath the centre.

Someone standing there has suddenly fallen silent over what he can see in the sharp rays of the lamp. It is Peter. He is back again in a passage deep beneath the centre. A wall has collapsed, and he has stumbled on to something.