aha, aha!'"

Oh, the ventriloquist's terrible voice! It was everywhere, everywhere.
It passed through the little invisible window, through the walls. It
ran around us, between us. Erik was there, speaking to us! We made a
movement as though to fling ourselves upon him. But, already, swifter,
more fleeting than the voice of the echo, Erik's voice had leaped back
behind the wall!

Soon we heard nothing more at all, for this is what happened:

"Erik! Erik!" said Christine's voice. "You tire me with your voice.
Don't go on, Erik! Isn't it very hot here?"

"Oh, yes," replied Erik's voice, "the heat is unendurable!"

"But what does this mean? ... The wall is really getting quite hot! ...
The wall is burning!"

"I'll tell you, Christine, dear: it is because of the forest next
door."

"Well, what has that to do with it? The forest?"

"WHY, DIDN'T YOU SEE THAT IT WAS AN AFRICAN FOREST?"

And the monster laughed so loudly and hideously that we could no longer
distinguish Christine's supplicating cries! The Vicomte de Chagny
shouted and banged against the walls like a madman. I could not
restrain him. But we heard nothing except the monster's laughter, and
the monster himself can have heard nothing else. And then there was
the sound of a body falling on the floor and being dragged along and a
door slammed and then nothing, nothing more around us save the
scorching silence of the south in the heart of a tropical forest!

Chapter XXIV "Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any Barrels to Sell?"

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I were
imprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors. Plenty
of these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions: they are
called "palaces of illusion," or some such name. But the invention
belongs entirely to Erik, who built the first room of this kind under
my eyes, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan. A decorative
object, such as a column, for instance, was placed in one of the
corners and immediately produced a hall of a thousand columns; for,
thanks to the mirrors, the real room was multiplied by six hexagonal
rooms, each of which, in its turn, was multiplied indefinitely. But
the little sultana soon tired of this infantile illusion, whereupon
Erik altered his invention into a "torture-chamber." For the
architectural motive placed in one corner, he substituted an iron tree.
This tre