or was a long stone passage, narrow and dark like a cave.
The shadows felt the walls with their hands softly, gropingly, but the
hands were silent like the feet. Except for a hurried breathing in the
darkness the passage seemed empty.

Beyond were more steps leading down, and another passage, and then a
second door locked and barred. Before this door the shadows halted,
huddled together. "Hist--st!" Instantly the floor under them began to
quiver and drop, inch by inch, foot by foot, down a well of continued
blackness. The minutes passed. They still dropped lower and lower, so
low that they were now below the level of the canal; down, down into
the very foundations of the tenement, once a palace. All of a sudden
the darkness ceased.

The room into which the elevator entered was large, low-raftered and
lighted by a group of candles at the far end. In the centre was a
black table, and about the table thirteen chairs also black. The one
at the head was occupied by a figure garbed in a cloak and hood, with a
black mask drawn down to the lips. The other chairs were empty.

By the light of the candles the shadows now took shape, the one from
the other, and twelve black-cloaked and hooded figures stole forward,
also masked to the lips. They passed one by one before the seated
mask, touching his hand lightly, fleetingly, as one dipping the fingers
into holy water, and then around the table to their seats, each in
turn, until all were placed.

Some of the figures were tall, broad-shouldered and heavy, others small
and slight. From the height, the strength or delicacy of the chin, the
shape and size of the hand, was it alone possible to distinguish the
sex; the rest was shrouded in a mystery absolute and unfathomable.

As the last and thirteenth chair was filled, the mask at the head
leaned forward and pointed silently to a dark object at the far end of
the room about which the candles flickered and sparkled. It was a huge
Black Cross suspended as above an altar. Below it lay an open bier,
roughly hewn out of the stone, and across it a name in scarlet
lettering. The bier was empty.

The twelve other masks turned towards the Cross, reading the name, and
they made a sign with the hands in unison, a rapid crisscross motion
over the breast, the forehead, the eyes, ending in the low murmur of a
word, unintelligible, like a pledge. Then the first mask to the left
rose and bowed to the Head.

"Speak," he said, "th