s and figures; if she glanced upwards, she saw human and
animal forms, and mixed with these the various constellations, sailing in
boats--the Egyptian notion of their motions--along the back of a woman
stretched out to an enormous length; or, again, figures by some Greek
artist: the Pleiades, Castor and Pollux as horsemen with stars on their
heads, and Berenice's star-gemmed hair.

The effect on the girl was bewildering, overpowering, as she made her way
through this underground world. The things she had glimpses of were very
sparely illuminated, nay scarcely discernible, and yet appallingly real;
what mysteries, what spells might not be hidden in all she did not see!
She felt as if the end of life, which she was looking for, had already
begun, as if she had already gone down, alive, into Hades.

The path gradually sloped upwards and at last she ascended, by a spiral
staircase, to the ground-floor of the temple. Once or twice she had met a
few men, but solemn silence reigned in those subterranean chambers.

The sound of their approaching and receding steps had only served to make
her aware of the complete stillness. This was just as it should be--just
as she would have it. This peace reminded her of the profound silence of
nature before a tempest bursts and rages.

Gorgo took off her veil as she went up the stairs, shook out the folds of
her dress, and assumed the dignified and reverent demeanor which became a
young girl of rank and position when approaching the altars of the
divinity. But as she reached the top a loud medley of noises and voices
met her ear-flutes, drums?--The sacred dance, she supposed, must be going
on.

She came out into a room on one side of the hypostyle; her companion
opened a high door, plated with gilt bronze and silver, and Gorgo
followed him, walking gravely with her head held high and her eyes fixed
on the ground, into the magnificent hall where the sacred image sat
enthroned in veiled majesty. They crossed the colonnade at the side of
the hypostyle and went down two steps into the vast nave of the temple.

The wild tumult that she had heard on first opening the door had
surprised and puzzled her; but now, as she timidly looked up and around
her, she felt a shock of horror and revulsion such as might come over a
man who, walking by night and believing that he is treading on flowers,
suddenly finds that the slimy slope of a bottomless bog is leading him to
perdition. She tottered and clu