The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible.
Then the Persian began to make play with the dark lantern again,
turning the rays over their heads, looking for the hole through which
they had come, and failing to find it: "Oh!" he said. "The stone has closed of itself!"
And the light of the lantern swept down the wall and over the floor.
The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord, which he
examined for a second and flung away with horror.
"The Punjab lasso!" he muttered.
"What is it?" asked Raoul.
The Persian shivered. "It might very well be the rope by which the man
was hanged, and which was looked for so long."
And, suddenly seized with fresh anxiety, he moved the little red disk
of his lantern over the walls. In this way, he lit up a curious thing:
the trunk of a tree, which seemed still quite alive, with its leaves;
and the branches of that tree ran right up the walls and disappeared in
the ceiling.
Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult at
first to make out the appearance of things: they saw a corner of a
branch ... and a leaf ... and another leaf ... and, next to it, nothing
at all, nothing but the ray of light that seemed to reflect itself ...
Raoul passed his hand over that nothing, over that reflection.
"Hullo!" he said. "The wall is a looking-glass!"
"Yes, a looking-glass!" said the Persian, in a tone of deep emotion.
And, passing the hand that held the pistol over his moist forehead, he
added, "We have dropped into the torture-chamber!"
What the Persian knew of this torture-chamber and what there befell him
and his companion shall be told in his own words, as set down in a
manuscript which he left behind him, and which I copy VERBATIM.
[1] M. Pedro Gailhard has himself told me that he created a few
additional posts as door-shutters for old stage-carpenters whom he was
unwilling to dismiss from the service of the Opera.
[2] In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch
over the safety of the Opera house outside the performances; but this
service has since been suppressed. I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the
reason, and he replied: "It was because the management was afraid that, in their utter
inexperience of the cellars of the Opera, the firemen might set fire to
the building!"
[3] Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the
apparition of this shade. Whereas, in this historic narrative,
everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course
of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand
what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than
that!" The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M.
Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret
regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the
wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the
cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on
gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage. I
am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no
more.