oint, she came
to one in the shape of a polygonal prism. In a long, broad corridor she
had to walk on a narrow path, bordered by sphinxes; and there she clung
tightly to her guide, for on one side of the foot-way yawned a gulf of
great depth. In another place she heard, above her head, the sound of
rushing waters, which then fell into the abyss beneath with a loud roar.
After this she came upon a large grotto, hewn in the living rock and
defended by a row of staring crocodiles' heads, plated with gold; the
heavy smell of stale incense and acrid resins choked her, and her way
now lay over iron gratings and past strangely contrived furnaces. The
walls were decorated with colored reliefs: Tantalus, Ixion, and Sisyphus
toiling at his stone, looked down on her in hideous realism as she went.
Rock chambers, fast closed with iron doors, as though they enclosed
inestimable treasures or inscrutable secrets, lay on either hand, and
her dress swept against numerous images and vessels closely shrouded in
hangings.

When she ventured to look round, her eye fell on monstrous forms and
mystical signs 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