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The Secret of the Night by Gaston Leroux
page 58 of 397 (14%)
fell back with him onto the bed, crying, 'Help!' He thrust me away
and said roughly, 'Listen.' The frightful tick-tack was behind us
now, on the table. But there was nothing on the table, only the
night-light, the glass with the potion in it, and a gold vase where
I had placed with my own hands that morning a cluster of grasses
and wild flowers that Ermolai had brought that morning on his return
from the Orel country. With one bound I was on the table and at
the flowers. I struck my fingers among the grasses and the flowers,
and felt a resistance. The tick-tack was in the bouquet! I took
the bouquet in both hands, opened the window and threw it as far
as I could into the garden. At the same moment the bomb burst with
a terrible noise, giving me quite a deep wound in the hand. Truly,
my dear little domovoi, that day we had been very near death, but
God and the Little Father watched over us."

And Matrena Petrovna made the sign of the cross.

"All the windows of the house were broken. In all, we escaped with
the fright and a visit from the glazier, my little friend, but I
certainly believed that all was over."

"And Mademoiselle Natacha?" inquired Rouletabille. "She must also
have been terribly frightened, because the whole house must have
rocked."

"Surely. But Natacha was not here that night. It was a Saturday.
She had been invited to the soiree du 'Michel' by the parents of
Boris Nikolaievitch, and she slept at their house, after supper at
the Ours, as had been planned. The next day, when she learned the
danger the general had escaped, she trembled in every limb. She
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