A bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.
"Well, Poitou, does it go better ?" he said cheerfully, "or must we try them of the other sex and somewhat younger, as I at first proposed ?" He let the door slip back, and the action of a powerful spring shut out Astarte.

Whereat she sat down on her haunches in the dark of the passage, and showed her gleaming teeth in a grin, as, with cocked ears, she listened to the sounds from within the secret laboratory of the Marshal de Retz..