Explore "Arsène Lupin, Super-Sleuth" by Maurice Leblanc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ralph's first impression was terrible. A starless night, crushing, implacable, a night of thick fog, weighed stilly and heavily on the invisible lake and the indistinct cliffs. His eyes were of no more use to him than the eyes of the blind. His ears heard only silence. The noise of the waterfalls was no longer heard: the fog absorbed them. And in this bottomless gulf it was necessary to see, to hear, to move, and to reach the goal. Sluices? Not for a moment did he think of them. It would have been folly to play the fatal game of hunting for them. No; his objective was the two ruffians. And they were in hiding. Fearing doubtless the direct attack on an adversary such as he, they were keeping prudently under cover, with every sense alert. Where to find them?
The icy water in which he was standing, breast-high, chilled him to the marrow so painfully that he did not think it possible to swim to the flood-gates. Moreover how would he be able to open them without knowing where the machinery was?