"Are we very far from the lake, sir?" asked Raoul. "When shall we get
there? ... Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake! ... When we
are at the lake, we will call out! ... Christine will hear us! ... And
HE will hear us, too! ... And, as you know him, we shall talk to him!"
"Baby!" said the Persian. "We shall never enter the house on the lake
by the lake! ... I myself have never landed on the other bank ... the
bank on which the house stands. ... You have to cross the lake first
... and it is well guarded! ... I fear that more than one of those
men--old scene-shifters, old door-shutters--who have never been seen
again were simply tempted to cross the lake ... It is terrible ... I
myself would have been nearly killed there ... if the monster had not
recognized me in time! ... One piece of advice, sir; never go near the
lake... And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing
under the water, the siren's voice!"

"But then, what are we here for?" asked Raoul, in a transport of fever,
impatience and rage. "If you can do nothing for Christine, at least
let me die for her!" The Persian tried to calm the young man.

"We have only one means of saving Christine Daae, believe me, which is
to enter the house unperceived by the monster."

"And is there any hope of that, sir?"

"Ah, if I had not that hope, I would not have come to fetch you!"

"And how can one enter the house on the lake without crossing the lake?"

"From the third cellar, from which we were so unluckily driven away.
We will go back there now ... I will tell you," said the Persian, with
a sudden change in his voice, "I will tell you the exact place, sir: it
is between a set piece and a discarded scene from ROI DE LAHORE,
exactly at the spot where Joseph Buquet died... Come, sir, take
courage and follow me! And hold your hand at the level of your eyes!
... But where are we?"

The Persian lit his lamp again and flung its rays down two enormous
corridors that crossed each other at right angles.

"We must be," he said, "in the part used more particularly for the
waterworks. I see no fire coming from the furnaces."

He went in front of Raoul, seeking his road, stopping abruptly when he
was afraid of meeting some waterman. Then they had to protect
themselves against the glow of a sort of underground forge, which the
men were extinguishing, and at which Raoul recognized the demons whom
Christine had seen at the time of her first