CHAPTER XVIII
UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS
BASIL SANTOINE was oversensitive to sound, as are most of the blind; in the world of darkness in which he lived, sounds were by far the most significant—and almost the only—means he had of telling what went on around him; he passed his life in listening for or determining the nature of sounds. So the struggle which ended in Eaton's crash to the floor would have waked him without the pistol-shot immediately following. That roused him wide-awake immediately and brought him sitting up in bed, forgetful of his own condition.
Santoine at once recognized the sound as a shot; but in the instant of waking, he had not been able to place it more definitely than to know that it was close. His hand went at once to the bellboard, and he rang at the same time for the nurse outside his door and for the steward. But for a few moments after that first shot, nothing followed; there was silence. Santoine was not one of those who doubt their hearing; that was the sense in which the circumstances of his life made him implicitly trust; he had heard a shot near by; the fact that nothing more followed did not make him doubt it; it made him think to explain it.
It was plain that no one else in the house had been stirred by it; for his windows were open and other
