and as he walked slowly
beside his companion he heard from the vaults below, as well as from
more distant regions of the vast building, the stirring and sighing of
the serried ranks of sleepers, sounding in the still air like a chord
swept from unseen strings stretched somewhere among the very foundations
of the house.

Stealthily, picking their way among the great pillars, they moved up the
sweeping staircase and through several dark corridors and halls, and
presently stopped outside a small door in an archway where the shadows
were very deep.

"Remain close by my side, and remember to utter no cry," whispered the
voice of his guide, and as the clerk turned to reply he saw his face was
stern to whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness.

The room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy black, but gradually
the secretary perceived a faint reddish glow against the farther end,
and thought he saw figures moving silently to and fro.

"Now watch!" whispered Thorpe, as they pressed close to the wall near
the door and waited. "But remember to keep absolute silence. It is a
torture scene."

Jones felt utterly afraid, and would have turned to fly if he dared, for
an indescribable terror seized him and his knees shook; but some power
that made escape impossible held him remorselessly there, and with eyes
glued on the spots of light he crouched against the wall and waited.

The figures began to move more swiftly, each in its own dim light that
shed no radiance beyond itself, and he heard a soft clanking of chains
and the voice of a man groaning in pain. Then came the sound of a door
closing, and thereafter Jones saw but one figure, the figure of an old
man, naked entirely, and fastened with chains to an iron framework on
the floor. His memory gave a sudden leap of fear as he looked, for the
features and white beard were familiar, and he recalled them as though
of yesterday.

The other figures had disappeared, and the old man became the centre of
the terrible picture. Slowly, with ghastly groans; as the heat below him
increased into a steady glow, the aged body rose in a curve of agony,
resting on the iron frame only where the chains held wrists and ankles
fast. Cries and gasps filled the air, and Jones felt exactly as though
they came from his own throat, and as if the chains were burning into
his own wrists and ankles, and the heat scorching the skin and flesh
upon his own back. He began to writhe and twist him