Atlantida

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.