light moving across the
platform ahead of me, as I was about to emerge from the tunnel.

"It was the light of a lantern, carried by a man who might have been the
double of that yellow-robed mendicant who had first unconsciously led me
to this accursed place.

"I won't deny that, up to the moment of sighting him, my one idea had
been to escape, to return, to quit this unholy spot. But now, as I
watched the bearer of the lantern cross the platform and enter one of
the seven corridors, that old, unquenchable thirst for new experiences
got me by the throat again.

"As the light of the lantern was swallowed up in the passage, I found my
bundle and rifle and set out to follow the man. Four paces brought me
to the foot of more steps. I walked barefooted, frequently pausing to
listen. There were many carvings upon the walls, but I had no leisure to
examine them.

"Contrary to my anticipations, however, there were no branches in this
zigzag staircase, which communicated directly with the top of the lofty
plateau. When presently I felt the fresh mountain air upon my face, I
wondered why I could perceive no light ahead of me. Yet the reason was
simple enough.

"Since I had passed through that strange watergate to the City of Fire,
the day had ended: it was night. And when, finding no further steps
ahead of me, I passed along a level, narrow corridor for some ten paces
and, looking upward, saw the stars, I was astounded.

"The yellow-robed man had disappeared, and I stood alone, looking down
upon that secret city which I had come so far to see.

"I found myself standing in deep undergrowth, and, pressing this gently
aside, I saw a wonderful spectacle. Away to my left was a great white
marble building, which I judged to be a temple; and forming a crescent
before it was a miniature town, each white-walled house surrounded by a
garden. It was Damascus reduced to fairy dimensions, a spectacle quite
unforgettable.

"The fact which made the whole thing awesome and unreal was the
presence, along the top of the temple (which, like that of Hatshepsu at
Deir elBahari, seemed to be hewn out of the living rock but was faced
with white marble) of seven giant flambeaux, each surmounted by a
darting tongue of blue flame!

"Legend had it that this was the temple built by Zoroaster and preserved
intact by that wonderful secretiveness of the Orient through the
generations, by a cult who awaited the coming of Zoroaster's successor,
of tha