hough with a
sudden resolution, he went to a secret cabinet and got out a key; and
with it he went to the door of the little room that was ever locked.

He stopped at the threshold for a while, looking hither and thither;
and then he suddenly unlocked it and went in, closing and locking it
behind him. The room was as dark as night, but Anthony going softly,
his hands before him, went to a corner and got a tinder-box which lay
there, and made a flame.

A small dark room appeared, hung with a black tapestry; the window
was heavily shuttered and curtained; in the centre of the room stood
what looked like a small altar, painted black; the floor was all bare,
but with white marks upon it, half effaced. Anthony looked about the
room, glancing sidelong, as though in some kind of doubt; his breath
went and came quickly, and he looked paler than was his wont.

Presently, as though reassured by the silence and calm of the place,
he went to a tall press that stood in a corner, which he opened, and
took from it certain things--a dish of metal, some small leathern
bags, a large lump of chalk, and a book. He laid all but the chalk
down on the altar, and then opening the book, read in it a little; and
then he went with the chalk and drew certain marks upon the floor,
first making a circle, which he went over again and again with anxious
care; at times he went back and peeped into the book as though
uncertain. Then he opened the bags, which seemed to hold certain kinds
of powder, this dusty, that in grains; he ran them through his hands,
and then poured a little of each into his dish, and mixed them with
his hands. Then he stopped and looked about him. Then he walked to a
place in the wall on the further side of the altar from the door, and
drew the arras carefully aside, disclosing a little alcove in the
wall; into this he looked fearfully, as though he was afraid of what
he might see.

In the alcove, which was all in black, appeared a small shelf, that
stood but a little way out from the wall. Upon it, gleaming very white
against the black, stood the skull of a man, and on either side of the
skull were the bones of a man's hand. It looked to him, as he gazed on
it with a sort of curious disgust, as though a dead man had come up to
the surface of a black tide, and was preparing presently to leap out.
On either side stood two long silver candlesticks, very dark with
disuse; but instead of holding candles, they were fitted at the to