ched the top of the stairs, the Prince guided him by the arm through
what the Abbe imagined to be a hall, opened a door, closed and locked it
after them, walked on again, opened another door, which he closed and
locked likewise, and over which the Abbe heard him pull a heavy curtain.
The Prince then took him again by the arm, advanced him a few steps, and
said in a low whisper, "Remain quietly standing where you are, and do
not attempt to remove the pocket handkerchief until you hear voices."

The Abbe folded his arms and stood motionless while he heard the Prince
walk away a few yards. It was evident to the unfortunate priest that the
room in which he stood was not dark, for although he could see nothing,
owing to the pocket handkerchief, which had been bound most skilfully
over his eyes, there was a sensation of being in strong light, and his
cheeks and hands felt, as it were, illuminated. Suddenly a horrible
sound sent a chill of terror through him--a gentle noise as of naked
flesh touching the waxed floor--and before he could recover from the
shock occasioned by the sound, the voices of many men, voices of men
groaning or wailing in some hideous ecstasy, broke the stillness,
crying--"Father of all sin and crime, Prince of all despair and anguish,
come to us, we implore thee!"

The Abbe, wild with terror, tore off the pocket handkerchief. He found
himself in a large, old-fashioned room, panelled up to the lofty ceiling
with oak, and filled with great light, shed from innumerable tapers
fitted into sconces on the wall--light which, though naturally _soft_,
was almost fierce by reason of its greatness, for it proceeded from at
least two hundred tapers. He had then been after all right in his
conjectures: he was evidently in a chamber of some one of the many
old-fashioned hotels which are to be seen in the Ile St. Louis, and
indeed in all the antiquated quarters of Paris. It was reassuring, at
all events, to know one was not in Hades, and to feel tolerably certain
that a sergeant de ville could not be many yards distant. All this
passed into his comprehension like a flash of lightning, for hardly had
the bandage left his eyes ere his whole attention was riveted upon a
group before him.

Twelve men--Pomerantseff among the number--of all ages, from twenty-five
to fifty-five, all dressed in evening dress, and all, so far as one
could judge at such a moment, men of culture and refinement, knelt or
rather lay nearly prone