We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridors
following M. Le Mesge.
"You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth," I muttered to
Morhange.
"Worse still, you will lose your head," answered my companion sotto
voce. "This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he
is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know."
M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with
strange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.
"Enter, gentlemen, I beg you," he said.
A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we were
entering was chill as a vault.
At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.
The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copper
lamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliant
red flames. As we entered, the wind from the corridor made the flames
flicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapen
shadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,
again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.
These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arranged
in a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fifty
feet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked with
trembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubbling
fountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained the
temperature of which I have spoken.
Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed the
murmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.
Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed a
second crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted toward
the vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined with
the coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all other
desire than to remain there forever.
M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on the
Cyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.
"In a few minutes," he said, "your eyes will grow accustomed to the
obscurity."
I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.
Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Only
the lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault was
drowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,
I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,
like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was no
means of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from the
dark ceiling.