Chapter: Chapter XX  In the Cellars of the Opera


"Your hand high, ready to fire!" repeated Raoul's companion quickly.

The wall, behind them, having completed the circle which it described
upon itself, closed again; and the two men stood motionless for a
moment, holding their breath.

At last, the Persian decided to make a movement; and Raoul heard him
slip on his knees and feel for something in the dark with his groping
hands.  Suddenly, the darkness was made visible by a small dark lantern
and Raoul instinctively stepped backward as though to escape the
scrutiny of a secret enemy.  But he soon perceived that the light
belonged to the Persian, whose movements he was closely observing.  The
little red disk was turned in every direction and Raoul saw that the
floor, the walls and the ceiling were all formed of planking.  It must
have been the ordinary road taken by Erik to reach Christine's
dressing-room and impose upon her innocence.  And Raoul, remembering
the Persian's remark, thought that it had been mysteriously constructed
by the ghost himself.  Later, he learned that Erik had found, all
prepared for him, a secret passage, long known to himself alone and
contrived at the time of the Paris Commune to allow the jailers to
convey their prisoners straight to the dungeons that had been
constructed for them in the cellars; for the Federates had occupied the
opera-house immediately after the eighteenth of March and had made a
starting-place right at the top for their Mongolfier balloons, which
carried their incendiary proclamations to the departments, and a state
prison right at the bottom.

The Persian went on his knees and put his lantern on the ground.  He
seemed to be working at the floor; and suddenly he turned off his
light.  Then Raoul heard a faint click and saw a very pale luminous
square in the floor of the passage.  It was as though a window had
opened on the Opera cellars, which were still lit.  Raoul no longer saw
the Persian, but he suddenly felt him by his side and heard him whisper:

"Follow me and do all that I do."

Raoul turned to the luminous aperture.  Then he saw the Persian, who
was still on his knees, hang by his hands from the rim of the opening,
with his pistol between his teeth, and slide into the cellar below.

Curiously enough, the viscount had absolute confidence in the Persian,
though he knew nothing about him.  His emotion when speaking of the
"monster" struck him as sincere; and, if the Persian had cherished any
sinister designs against him, he would not have armed him with his own
hands.  Besides, Raoul must reach Christine at all costs.  He therefore
went on his knees also and hung from the trap with both hands.

"Let go!" said a voice.

And he dropped into the arms of the Persian, who told him to lie down
flat, closed the trap-door above him and crouched down beside him.
Raoul tried to ask a question, but the Persian's hand was on his mouth
and he heard a voice which he recognized as that of the commissary of
police.

Raoul and the Persian were completely hidden behind a wooden partition.
Near them, a small staircase led to a little room in which the
commissary appeared to be walking up and down, asking questions.  The
faint light was just enough to enable Raoul to distinguish the shape of
things around him.  And he could not restrain a dull cry: there were
three corpses there.

The first lay on the narrow landing of the little staircase; the two
others had rolled to the bottom of the staircase.  Raoul could have
touched one of the two poor wretches by passing his fingers through the
partition.

"Silence!" whispered the Persian.

He too had seen the bodies and he gave one word in explanation:

"HE!"

The commissary's voice was now heard more distinctly.  He was asking
for information about the system of lighting, which the stage-manager
supplied.  The commissary therefore must be in the "organ" or its
immediate neighborhood.

Contrary to what one might think, especially in connection with an
opera-house, the "organ" is not a musical instrument.  At that time,
electricity was employed only for a very few scenic effects and for the
bells.  The immense building and the stage itself were still lit by
gas; hydrogen was used to regulate and modify the lighting of a scene;
and this was done by means of a special apparatus which, because of the
multiplicity of its pipes, was known as the "organ." A box beside the
prompter's box was reserved for the chief gas-man, who from there gave
his orders to his assistants and saw that they were executed.  Mauclair
stayed in this box during all the performances.

But now Mauclair was not in his box and his assistants not in their
places.

"Mauclair!  Mauclair!"

The stage-manager's voice echoed through the cellars.  But Mauclair did
not reply.

I have said that a door opened on a little staircase that led to the
second cellar.  The commissary pushed it, but it resisted.

"I say," he said to the stage-manager, "I can't open this door: is it
always so difficult?"

The stage-manager forced it open with his shoulder.  He saw that, at
the same time, he was pushing a human body and he could not keep back
an exclamation, for he recognized the body at once:

"Mauclair!  Poor devil!  He is dead!"

But Mr. Commissary Mifroid, whom nothing surprised, was stooping over
that big body.

"No," he said, "he is dead-drunk, which is not quite the same thing."

"It's the first time, if so," said the stage-manager

"Then some one has given him a narcotic.  That is quite possible."

Mifroid went down a few steps and said:

"Look!"

By the light of a little red lantern, at the foot of the stairs, they
saw two other bodies.  The stage-manager recognized Mauclair's
assistants.  Mifroid went down and listened to their breathing.

"They are sound asleep," he said.  "Very curious business!  Some person
unknown must have interfered with the gas-man and his staff ... and
that person unknown was obviously working on behalf of the kidnapper
...  But what a funny idea to kidnap a performer on the stage! ... Send
for the doctor of the theater, please." And Mifroid repeated, "Curious,
decidedly curious business!"

Then he turned to the little room, addressing the people whom Raoul and
the Persian were unable to see from where they lay.

"What do you say to all this, gentlemen?  You are the only ones who
have not given your views.  And yet you must have an opinion of some
sort."

Thereupon, Raoul and the Persian saw the startled faces of the joint
managers appear above the landing--and they heard Moncharmin's excited
voice:

"There are things happening here, Mr. Commissary, which we are unable
to explain."

And the two faces disappeared.

"Thank you for the information, gentlemen," said Mifroid, with a jeer.

But the stage-manager, holding his chin in the hollow of his right
hand, which is the attitude of profound thought, said:

"It is not the first time that Mauclair has fallen asleep in the
theater.  I remember finding him, one evening, snoring in his little
recess, with his snuff-box beside him."

"Is that long ago?" asked M. Mifroid, carefully wiping his eye-glasses.

"No, not so very long ago ...  Wait a bit! ... It was the night ... of
course, yes ... It was the night when Carlotta--you know, Mr.
Commissary--gave her famous 'co-ack'!"

"Really?  The night when Carlotta gave her famous 'co-ack'?"

And M. Mifroid, replacing his gleaming glasses on his nose, fixed the
stage-manager with a contemplative stare.

"So Mauclair takes snuff, does he?" he asked carelessly.

"'Yes, Mr. Commissary ...  Look, there is his snuff-box on that little
shelf ...  Oh! he's a great snuff-taker!"

"So am I," said Mifroid and put the snuff-box in his pocket.

Raoul and the Persian, themselves unobserved, watched the removal of
the three bodies by a number of scene-shifters, who were followed by
the commissary and all the people with him.  Their steps were heard for
a few minutes on the stage above.  When they were alone the Persian
made a sign to Raoul to stand up.  Raoul did so; but, as he did not
lift his hand in front of his eyes, ready to fire, the Persian told him
to resume that attitude and to continue it, whatever happened.

"But it tires the hand unnecessarily," whispered Raoul.  "If I do fire,
I shan't be sure of my aim."

"Then shift your pistol to the other hand," said the Persian.

"I can't shoot with my left hand."

Thereupon, the Persian made this queer reply, which was certainly not
calculated to throw light into the young man's flurried brain:

"It's not a question of shooting with the right hand or the left; it's
a question of holding one of your hands as though you were going to
pull the trigger of a pistol with your arm bent.  As for the pistol
itself, when all is said, you can put that in your pocket!"  And he
added, "Let this be clearly understood, or I will answer for nothing.
It is a matter of life and death.  And now, silence and follow me!"

The cellars of the Opera are enormous and they are five in number.
Raoul followed the Persian and wondered what he would have done without
his companion in that extraordinary labyrinth.  They went down to the
third cellar; and their progress was still lit by some distant lamp.

The lower they went, the more precautions the Persian seemed to take.
He kept on turning to Raoul to see if he was holding his arm properly,
showing him how he himself carried his hand as if always ready to fire,
though the pistol was in his pocket.

Suddenly, a loud voice made them stop.  Some one above them shouted:

"All the door-shutters on the stage!  The commissary of police wants
them!"

Steps were heard and shadows glided through the darkness.  The Persian
drew Raoul behind a set piece.  They saw passing before and above them
old men bent by age and the past burden of opera-scenery.  Some could
hardly drag themselves along; others, from habit, with stooping bodies
and outstretched hands, looked for doors to shut.

They were the door-shutters, the old, worn-out scene-shifters, on whom
a charitable management had taken pity, giving them the job of shutting
doors above and below the stage.  They went about incessantly, from top
to bottom of the building, shutting the doors; and they were also
called "The draft-expellers," at least at that time, for I have little
doubt that by now they are all dead.  Drafts are very bad for the
voice, wherever they may come from.[1]

The two men might have stumbled over them, waking them up and provoking
a request for explanations.  For the moment, M. Mifroid's inquiry saved
them from any such unpleasant encounters.

The Persian and Raoul welcomed this incident, which relieved them of
inconvenient witnesses, for some of those door-shutters, having nothing
else to do or nowhere to lay their heads, stayed at the Opera, from
idleness or necessity, and spent the night there.

But they were not left to enjoy their solitude for long.  Other shades
now came down by the same way by which the door-shutters had gone up.
Each of these shades carried a little lantern and moved it about,
above, below and all around, as though looking for something or
somebody.

"Hang it!" muttered the Persian.  "I don't know what they are looking
for, but they might easily find us ...  Let us get away, quick! ...
Your hand up, sir, ready to fire! ... Bend your arm ... more ... that's
it! ... Hand at the level of your eye, as though you were fighting a
duel and waiting for the word to fire!  Oh, leave your pistol in your
pocket.  Quick, come along, down-stairs.  Level of your eye!  Question
of life or death! ...  Here, this way, these stairs!"  They reached the
fifth cellar.  "Oh, what a duel, sir, what a duel!"

Once in the fifth cellar, the Persian drew breath.  He seemed to enjoy
a rather greater sense of security than he had displayed when they both
stopped in the third; but he never altered the attitude of his hand.
And Raoul, remembering the Persian's observation--"I know these pistols
can be relied upon"--was more and more astonished, wondering why any
one should be so gratified at being able to rely upon a pistol which he
did not intend to use!

But the Persian left him no time for reflection.  Telling Raoul to stay
where he was, he ran up a few steps of the staircase which they had
just left and then returned.

"How stupid of us!" he whispered.  "We shall soon have seen the end of
those men with their lanterns.  It is the firemen going their
rounds."[2]

The two men waited five minutes longer.  Then the Persian took Raoul up
the stairs again; but suddenly he stopped him with a gesture.
Something moved in the darkness before them.

"Flat on your stomach!" whispered the Persian.

The two men lay flat on the floor.

They were only just in time.  A shade, this time carrying no light,
just a shade in the shade, passed.  It passed close to them, near
enough to touch them.

They felt the warmth of its cloak upon them.  For they could
distinguish the shade sufficiently to see that it wore a cloak which
shrouded it from head to foot.  On its head it had a soft felt hat ...

It moved away, drawing its feet against the walls and sometimes giving
a kick into a corner.

"Whew!" said the Persian.  "We've had a narrow escape; that shade knows
me and has twice taken me to the managers' office."

"Is it some one belonging to the theater police?" asked Raoul.

"It's some one much worse than that!" replied the Persian, without
giving any further explanation.[3]

"It's not ... he?"

"He? ... If he does not come behind us, we shall always see his yellow
eyes!  That is more or less our safeguard to-night. But he may come
from behind, stealing up; and we are dead men if we do not keep our
hands as though about to fire, at the level of our eyes, in front!"

The Persian had hardly finished speaking, when a fantastic face came in
sight ... a whole fiery face, not only two yellow eyes!

Yes, a head of fire came toward them, at a man's height, but with no
body attached to it.  The face shed fire, looked in the darkness like a
flame shaped as a man's face.

"Oh," said the Persian, between his teeth.  "I have never seen this
before! ... Pampin was not mad, after all: he had seen it! ...  What
can that flame be?  It is not HE, but he may have sent it!  ... Take
care! ... Take care!  Your hand at the level of your eyes, in Heaven's
name, at the level of your eyes! ... know most of his tricks ...  but
not this one ...  Come, let us run ...  it is safer.  Hand at the level
of your eyes!"

And they fled down the long passage that opened before them.

After a few seconds, that seemed to them like long minutes, they
stopped.

"He doesn't often come this way," said the Persian.  "This side has
nothing to do with him.  This side does not lead to the lake nor to the
house on the lake ...  But perhaps he knows that we are at his heels
... although I promised him to leave him alone and never to meddle in
his business again!"

So saying, he turned his head and Raoul also turned his head; and they
again saw the head of fire behind their two heads.  It had followed
them.  And it must have run also, and perhaps faster than they, for it
seemed to be nearer to them.

At the same time, they began to perceive a certain noise of which they
could not guess the nature.  They simply noticed that the sound seemed
to move and to approach with the fiery face.  It was a noise as though
thousands of nails had been scraped against a blackboard, the perfectly
unendurable noise that is sometimes made by a little stone inside the
chalk that grates on the blackboard.

They continued to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on, gaining
on them.  They could see its features clearly now.  The eyes were round
and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large, with a
hanging lower lip, very like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon, when
the moon is quite red, bright red.

How did that red moon manage to glide through the darkness, at a man's
height, with nothing to support it, at least apparently?  And how did
it go so fast, so straight ahead, with such staring, staring eyes?  And
what was that scratching, scraping, grating sound which it brought with
it?

The Persian and Raoul could retreat no farther and flattened themselves
against the wall, not knowing what was going to happen because of that
incomprehensible head of fire, and especially now, because of the more
intense, swarming, living, "numerous" sound, for the sound was
certainly made up of hundreds of little sounds that moved in the
darkness, under the fiery face.

And the fiery face came on ... with its noise ... came level with them!
...

And the two companions, flat against their wall, felt their hair stand
on end with horror, for they now knew what the thousand noises meant.
They came in a troop, hustled along in the shadow by innumerable little
hurried waves, swifter than the waves that rush over the sands at high
tide, little night-waves foaming under the moon, under the fiery head
that was like a moon.  And the little waves passed between their legs,
climbing up their legs, irresistibly, and Raoul and the Persian could
no longer restrain their cries of horror, dismay and pain.  Nor could
they continue to hold their hands at the level of their eyes: their
hands went down to their legs to push back the waves, which were full
of little legs and nails and claws and teeth.

Yes, Raoul and the Persian were ready to faint, like Pampin the
fireman.  But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries,
and spoke to them:

"Don't move!  Don't move! ... Whatever you do, don't come after me!
...  I am the rat-catcher! ... Let me pass, with my rats! ..."

And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness, while the
passage in front of it lit up, as the result of the change which the
rat-catcher had made in his dark lantern.  Before, so as not to scare
the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern on himself,
lighting up his own head; now, to hasten their flight, he lit the dark
space in front of him.  And he jumped along, dragging with him the
waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds.

Raoul and the Persian breathed again, though still trembling.

"I ought to have remembered that Erik talked to me about the
rat-catcher," said the Persian.  "But he never told me that he looked
like that ...  and it's funny that I should never have met him before
...  Of course, Erik never comes to this part!"

[Illustration: two page color illustration]

"Are we very far from the lake, sir?" asked Raoul.  "When shall we get
there? ... Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake! ...  When we
are at the lake, we will call out! ... Christine will hear us! ... And
HE will hear us, too! ... And, as you know him, we shall talk to him!"
"Baby!" said the Persian.  "We shall never enter the house on the lake
by the lake! ... I myself have never landed on the other bank ... the
bank on which the house stands.  ... You have to cross the lake first
... and it is well guarded!  ... I fear that more than one of those
men--old scene-shifters, old door-shutters--who have never been seen
again were simply tempted to cross the lake ...  It is terrible ...  I
myself would have been nearly killed there ... if the monster had not
recognized me in time!  ... One piece of advice, sir; never go near the
lake... And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing
under the water, the siren's voice!"

"But then, what are we here for?" asked Raoul, in a transport of fever,
impatience and rage.  "If you can do nothing for Christine, at least
let me die for her!"  The Persian tried to calm the young man.

"We have only one means of saving Christine Daae, believe me, which is
to enter the house unperceived by the monster."

"And is there any hope of that, sir?"

"Ah, if I had not that hope, I would not have come to fetch you!"

"And how can one enter the house on the lake without crossing the lake?"

"From the third cellar, from which we were so unluckily driven away.
We will go back there now ...  I will tell you," said the Persian, with
a sudden change in his voice, "I will tell you the exact place, sir: it
is between a set piece and a discarded scene from ROI DE LAHORE,
exactly at the spot where Joseph Buquet died...  Come, sir, take
courage and follow me!  And hold your hand at the level of your eyes!
... But where are we?"

The Persian lit his lamp again and flung its rays down two enormous
corridors that crossed each other at right angles.

"We must be," he said, "in the part used more particularly for the
waterworks.  I see no fire coming from the furnaces."

He went in front of Raoul, seeking his road, stopping abruptly when he
was afraid of meeting some waterman.  Then they had to protect
themselves against the glow of a sort of underground forge, which the
men were extinguishing, and at which Raoul recognized the demons whom
Christine had seen at the time of her first captivity.

In this way, they gradually arrived beneath the huge cellars below the
stage.  They must at this time have been at the very bottom of the
"tub" and at an extremely great depth, when we remember that the earth
was dug out at fifty feet below the water that lay under the whole of
that part of Paris.[4]

The Persian touched a partition-wall and said:

"If I am not mistaken, this is a wall that might easily belong to the
house on the lake."

He was striking a partition-wall of the "tub," and perhaps it would be
as well for the reader to know how the bottom and the partition-walls
of the tub were built.  In order to prevent the water surrounding the
building-operations from remaining in immediate contact with the walls
supporting the whole of the theatrical machinery, the architect was
obliged to build a double case in every direction.  The work of
constructing this double case took a whole year.  It was the wall of
the first inner case that the Persian struck when speaking to Raoul of
the house on the lake.  To any one understanding the architecture of
the edifice, the Persian's action would seem to indicate that Erik's
mysterious house had been built in the double case, formed of a thick
wall constructed as an embankment or dam, then of a brick wall, a
tremendous layer of cement and another wall several yards in thickness.

At the Persian's words, Raoul flung himself against the wall and
listened eagerly.  But he heard nothing ... nothing ... except distant
steps sounding on the floor of the upper portions of the theater.

The Persian darkened his lantern again.

"Look out!" he said.  "Keep your hand up!  And silence!  For we shall
try another way of getting in."

And he led him to the little staircase by which they had come down
lately.

They went up, stopping at each step, peering into the darkness and the
silence, till they came to the third cellar.  Here the Persian motioned
to Raoul to go on his knees; and, in this way, crawling on both knees
and one hand--for the other hand was held in the position
indicated--they reached the end wall.

Against this wall stood a large discarded scene from the ROI DE LAHORE.
Close to this scene was a set piece.  Between the scene and the set
piece there was just room for a body ... for a body which one day was
found hanging there.  The body of Joseph Buquet.

The Persian, still kneeling, stopped and listened.  For a moment, he
seemed to hesitate and looked at Raoul; then he turned his eyes upward,
toward the second cellar, which sent down the faint glimmer of a
lantern, through a cranny between two boards.  This glimmer seemed to
trouble the Persian.

At last, he tossed his head and made up his mind to act.  He slipped
between the set piece and the scene from the ROI DE LAHORE, with Raoul
close upon his heels.  With his free hand, the Persian felt the wall.
Raoul saw him bear heavily upon the wall, just as he had pressed
against the wall in Christine's dressing-room. Then a stone gave way,
leaving a hole in the wall.

This time, the Persian took his pistol from his pocket and made a sign
to Raoul to do as he did.  He cocked the pistol.

And, resolutely, still on his knees, he wiggled through the hole in the
wall.  Raoul, who had wished to pass first, had to be content to follow
him.

The hole was very narrow.  The Persian stopped almost at once.  Raoul
heard him feeling the stones around him.  Then the Persian took out his
dark lantern again, stooped forward, examined something beneath him and
immediately extinguished his lantern.  Raoul heard him say, in a
whisper:

"We shall have to drop a few yards, without making a noise; take off
your boots."

The Persian handed his own shoes to Raoul.

"Put them outside the wall," he said.  "We shall find them there when
we leave."[5]

He crawled a little farther on his knees, then turned right round and
said:

"I am going to hang by my hands from the edge of the stone and let
myself drop INTO HIS HOUSE.  You must do exactly the same.  Do not be
afraid.  I will catch you in my arms."

Raoul soon heard a dull sound, evidently produced by the fall of the
Persian, and then dropped down.

He felt himself clasped in the Persian's arms.

"Hush!" said the Persian.

And they stood motionless, listening.

The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible.

Then the Persian began to make play with the dark lantern again,
turning the rays over their heads, looking for the hole through which
they had come, and failing to find it:

"Oh!" he said.  "The stone has closed of itself!"

And the light of the lantern swept down the wall and over the floor.

The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord, which he
examined for a second and flung away with horror.

"The Punjab lasso!" he muttered.

"What is it?" asked Raoul.

The Persian shivered.  "It might very well be the rope by which the man
was hanged, and which was looked for so long."

And, suddenly seized with fresh anxiety, he moved the little red disk
of his lantern over the walls.  In this way, he lit up a curious thing:
the trunk of a tree, which seemed still quite alive, with its leaves;
and the branches of that tree ran right up the walls and disappeared in
the ceiling.

Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult at
first to make out the appearance of things:  they saw a corner of a
branch ... and a leaf ... and another leaf ... and, next to it, nothing
at all, nothing but the ray of light that seemed to reflect itself ...
Raoul passed his hand over that nothing, over that reflection.

"Hullo!" he said.  "The wall is a looking-glass!"

"Yes, a looking-glass!" said the Persian, in a tone of deep emotion.
And, passing the hand that held the pistol over his moist forehead, he
added, "We have dropped into the torture-chamber!"

What the Persian knew of this torture-chamber and what there befell him
and his companion shall be told in his own words, as set down in a
manuscript which he left behind him, and which I copy VERBATIM.



[1] M. Pedro Gailhard has himself told me that he created a few
additional posts as door-shutters for old stage-carpenters whom he was
unwilling to dismiss from the service of the Opera.

[2] In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch
over the safety of the Opera house outside the performances; but this
service has since been suppressed.  I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the
reason, and he replied:

"It was because the management was afraid that, in their utter
inexperience of the cellars of the Opera, the firemen might set fire to
the building!"

[3] Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the
apparition of this shade.  Whereas, in this historic narrative,
everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course
of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand
what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than
that!"  The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M.
Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret
regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the
wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the
cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on
gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage.  I
am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no
more.

[4] All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera.
To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can tell
the reader that it represented the area of the courtyard of the Louvre
and a height half as deep again as the towers of Notre Dame.  And
nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake.

[5] These two pairs of boots, which were placed, according to the
Persian's papers, just between the set piece and the scene from the ROI
DE LAHORE, on the spot where Joseph Buquet was found hanging, were
never discovered.  They must have been taken by some stage-carpenter or
"door-shutter."





Chapter XXI  Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in
the Cellars of the Opera


THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake.  I had
often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my
country, to open its mysterious doors to me.  He always refused.  I
made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance.  Watch him
as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent
abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to
see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake.  One day, when I
thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that
part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear.  It was then
that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and
whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.

I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I
floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that
hovered all around me.  It was half breath, half music; it rose softly
from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew
not what artifice.  It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that
it did not alarm me.  On the contrary, in my longing to approach the
source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little
boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing
came from the water itself.  By this time, I was alone in the boat in
the middle of the lake; the voice--for it was now distinctly a
voice--was beside me, on the water.  I leaned over, leaned still
farther.  The lake was perfectly calm, and a moonbeam that passed
through the air hole in the Rue Scribe showed me absolutely nothing on
its surface, which was smooth and black as ink.  I shook my ears to get
rid of a possible humming; but I soon had to accept the fact that there
was no humming in the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that
followed and now attracted me.

Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought
that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound the
traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on the lake.
Fortunately, I come from a country where we are too fond of fantastic
things not to know them through and through; and I had no doubt but
that I was face to face with some new invention of Erik's. But this
invention was so perfect that, as I leaned out of the boat, I was
impelled less by a desire to discover its trick than to enjoy its
charm; and I leaned out, leaned out until I almost overturned the boat.

Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and
seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible
force.  I should certainly have been lost, if I had not had time to
give a cry by which Erik knew me.  For it was he; and, instead of
drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and
laid me gently on the bank:

"How imprudent you are!" he said, as he stood before me, dripping with
water.  "Why try to enter my house?  I never invited you!  I don't want
you there, nor anybody!  Did you save my life only to make it
unbearable to me?  However great the service you rendered him, Erik may
end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not
even Erik himself."

He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already
called the trick of the siren.  He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik,
who is a real monster--I have seen him at work in Persia, alas--is
also, in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited,
and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people, as to
prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.

He laughed and showed me a long reed.

"It's the silliest trick you ever saw," he said, "but it's very useful
for breathing and singing in the water.  I learned it from the Tonkin
pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the
rivers."[1]

I spoke to him severely.

"It's a trick that nearly killed me!"  I said.  "And it may have been
fatal to others!  You know what you promised me, Erik?  No more
murders!"

"Have I really committed murders?" he asked, putting on his most
amiable air.

"Wretched man!"  I cried.  "Have you forgotten the rosy hours of
Mazenderan?"

"Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them.  I used
to make the little sultana laugh, though!"

"All that belongs to the past," I declared; "but there is the present
... and you are responsible to me for the present, because, if I had
wished, there would have been none at all for you.  Remember that,
Erik:  I saved your life!"

And I took advantage of the turn of conversation to speak to him of
something that had long been on my mind:

"Erik," I asked, "Erik, swear that ..."

"What?" he retorted.  "You know I never keep my oaths.  Oaths are made
to catch gulls with."

"Tell me ... you can tell me, at any rate..."

"Well?"

"Well, the chandelier ... the chandelier, Erik? ..."

"What about the chandelier?"

"You know what I mean."

"Oh," he sniggered, "I don't mind telling you about the chandelier!
... IT WASN'T I! ... The chandelier was very old and worn."

When Erik laughed, he was more terrible than ever.  He jumped into the
boat, chuckling so horribly that I could not help trembling.

"Very old and worn, my dear daroga![2]  Very old and worn, the
chandelier! ... It fell of itself! ... It came down with a smash! ...
And now, daroga, take my advice and go and dry yourself, or you'll
catch a cold in the head! ...  And never get into my boat again ...
And, whatever you do, don't try to enter my house:  I'm not always
there ... daroga!  And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my Requiem
Mass to you!"

So saying, swinging to and fro, like a monkey, and still chuckling, he
pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake.

From that day, I gave up all thought of penetrating into his house by
the lake.  That entrance was obviously too well guarded, especially
since he had learned that I knew about it.  But I felt that there must
be another entrance, for I had often seen Erik disappear in the third
cellar, when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.

Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived in a
perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I was
concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.[3]

And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought
to myself, "I should not be surprised if that were Erik," even as
others used to say, "It's the ghost!"  How often have I not heard
people utter that phrase with a smile!  Poor devils!  If they had known
that the ghost existed in the flesh, I swear they would not have
laughed!

Although Erik announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and
that he had become the most virtuous of men SINCE HE WAS LOVED FOR
HIMSELF--a sentence that, at first, perplexed me most terribly--I could
not help shuddering when I thought of the monster.  His horrible,
unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without the pale of
humanity; and it often seemed to me that, for this reason, he no longer
believed that he had any duty toward the human race.  The way in which
he spoke of his love affairs only increased my alarm, for I foresaw the
cause of fresh and more hideous tragedies in this event to which he
alluded so boastfully.

On the other hand, I soon discovered the curious moral traffic
established between the monster and Christine Daae.  Hiding in the
lumber-room next to the young prima donna's dressing-room, I listened
to wonderful musical displays that evidently flung Christine into
marvelous ecstasy; but, all the same, I would never have thought that
Erik's voice--which was loud as thunder or soft as angels' voices, at
will--could have made her forget his ugliness.  I understood all when I
learned that Christine had not yet seen him!  I had occasion to go to
the dressing-room and, remembering the lessons he had once given me, I
had no difficulty in discovering the trick that made the wall with the
mirror swing round and I ascertained the means of hollow bricks and so
on--by which he made his voice carry to Christine as though she heard
it close beside her.  In this way also I discovered the road that led
to the well and the dungeon--the Communists' dungeon--and also the
trap-door that enabled Erik to go straight to the cellars below the
stage.

A few days later, what was not my amazement to learn by my own eyes and
ears that Erik and Christine Daae saw each other and to catch the
monster stooping over the little well, in the Communists' road and
sprinkling the forehead of Christine Daae, who had fainted.  A white
horse, the horse out of the PROFETA, which had disappeared from the
stables under the Opera, was standing quietly beside them.  I showed
myself.  It was terrible.  I saw sparks fly from those yellow eyes and,
before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on the head that
stunned me.

When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had
disappeared.  I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the
house on the lake.  Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the
bank, notwithstanding the attendant danger.  For twenty-four hours, I
lay in wait for the monster to appear; for I felt that he must go out,
driven by the need of obtaining provisions.  And, in this connection, I
may say, that, when he went out in the streets or ventured to show
himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose, with a mustache attached
to it, instead of his own horrible hole of a nose.  This did not quite
take away his corpse-like air, but it made him almost, I say almost,
endurable to look at.

I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and, weary of long waiting,
was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door, the
door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in the dark,
I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles and soon the boat
touched shore.  Erik jumped out and walked up to me:

"You've been here for twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're annoying
me.  I tell you, all this will end very badly.  And you will have
brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with
you.  You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I
who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here.  I
spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD; but I warn you,
seriously, don't let me catch you there again!  Upon my word, you don't
seem able to take a hint!"

He was so furious that I did not think, for the moment, of interrupting
him.  After puffing and blowing like a walrus, he put his horrible
thought into words:

"Yes, you must learn, once and for all--once and for all, I say--to
take a hint!  I tell you that, with your recklessness--for you have
already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat, who did not
know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to the managers,
who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested in stage
mechanism and life behind the scenes:  I know all about it, I was
there, in the office; you know I am everywhere--well, I tell you that,
with your recklessness, they will end by wondering what you are after
here ... and they will end by knowing that you are after Erik ... and
then they will be after Erik themselves and they will discover the
house on the lake ...  If they do, it will be a bad lookout for you,
old chap, a bad lookout! ...  I won't answer for anything."

Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.

"I won't answer for anything! ... If Erik's secrets cease to be Erik's
secrets, IT WILL BE A BAD LOOKOUT FOR A GOODLY NUMBER OF THE HUMAN
RACE!  That's all I have to tell you, and unless you are a great booby,
it ought to be enough for you ... except that you don't know how to
take a hint."

He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels
against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer.  I simply
said:

"It's not Erik that I'm after here!"

"Who then?"

"You know as well as I do:  it's Christine Daae," I answered.

He retorted:  "I have every right to see her in my own house.  I am
loved for my own sake."

"That's not true," I said.  "You have carried her off and are keeping
her locked up."

"Listen," he said.  "Will you promise never to meddle with my affairs
again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?"

"Yes, I promise you," I replied, without hesitation, for I felt
convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.

"Well, then, it's quite simple ...  Christine Daae shall leave this as
she pleases and come back again! ... Yes, come back again, because she
wishes ... come back of herself, because she loves me for myself! ..."

"Oh, I doubt if she will come back! ... But it is your duty to let her
go."  "My duty, you great booby! ... It is my wish ...  my wish to let
her go; and she will come back again ... for she loves me! ... All this
will end in a marriage ... a marriage at the Madeleine, you great
booby!  Do you believe me now?  When I tell you that my nuptial mass is
written ... wait till you hear the KYRIE..."

He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:

"KYRIE! ... KYRIE! ... KYRIE ELEISON! ... Wait till you hear, wait till
you hear that mass."

"Look here," I said.  "I shall believe you if I see Christine Daae come
out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord."

"And you won't meddle any more in my affairs?"

"No."

"Very well, you shall see that to-night. Come to the masked ball.
Christine and I will go and have a look round.  Then you can hide in
the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her
dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists' road... And,
now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!"

To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.
Christine Daae left the house on the lake and returned to it several
times, without, apparently, being forced to do so.  It was very
difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik.  However, I resolved to be
extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the
shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists' road.  But the idea
of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and I repeatedly
went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which
had been left there for some reason or other.  At last my patience was
rewarded.  One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees.  I
was certain that he could not see me.  He passed between the scene
behind which I stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a
spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress.  He passed
through this, and the stone closed behind him.

I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my
turn.  Everything happened as with Erik.  But I was careful not to go
through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside.  On the other
hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly made me think of
the death of Joseph Buquet.  I did not wish to jeopardize the
advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many
people, "to a goodly number of the human race," in Erik's words; and I
left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone.

I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and
Christine Daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the
terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable of
anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake,
as he imagined.  I continued to wander, very cautiously, about the
Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's dreary love-affair.

He filled Christine's mind, through the terror with which he inspired
her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de
Chagny.  While they played about, like an innocent engaged couple, on
the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little
suspected that some one was watching over them.  I was prepared to do
anything:  to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police
afterward.  But Erik did not show himself; and I felt none the more
comfortable for that.

I must explain my whole plan.  I thought that the monster, being driven
from his house by jealousy, would thus enable me to enter it, without
danger, through the passage in the third cellar.  It was important, for
everybody's sake, that I should know exactly what was inside.  One day,
tired of waiting for an opportunity, I moved the stone and at once
heard an astounding music: the monster was working at his Don Juan
Triumphant, with every door in his house wide open.  I knew that this
was the work of his life.  I was careful not to stir and remained
prudently in my dark hole.

He stopped playing, for a moment, and began walking about his place,
like a madman.  And he said aloud, at the top of his voice:

"It must be finished FIRST!  Quite finished!"

This speech was not calculated to reassure me and, when the music
recommenced, I closed the stone very softly.

On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I did not come to the
theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest I should hear
bad news.  I had spent a horrible day, for, after reading in a morning
paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and
the Vicomte de Chagny, I wondered whether, after all, I should not do
better to denounce the monster.  But reason returned to me, and I was
persuaded that this action could only precipitate a possible
catastrophe.

When, my cab set me down before the Opera, I was really almost
astonished to see it still standing!  But I am something of a fatalist,
like all good Orientals, and I entered ready, for anything.

Christine Daae's abduction in the Prison Act, which naturally surprised
everybody, found me prepared.  I was quite certain that she had been
juggled away by Erik, that prince of conjurers.  And I thought
positively that this was the end of Christine and perhaps of everybody,
so much so that I thought of advising all these people who were staying
on at the theater to make good their escape.  I felt, however, that
they would be sure to look upon me as mad and I refrained.

On the other hand, I resolved to act without further delay, as far as I
was concerned.  The chances were in my favor that Erik, at that moment,
was thinking only of his captive.  This was the moment to enter his
house through the third cellar; and I resolved to take with me that
poor little desperate viscount, who, at the first suggestion, accepted,
with an amount of confidence in myself that touched me profoundly.  I
had sent my servant for my pistols.  I gave one to the viscount and
advised him to hold himself ready to fire, for, after all, Erik might
be waiting for us behind the wall.  We were to go by the Communists'
road and through the trap-door.

Seeing my pistols, the little viscount asked me if we were going to
fight a duel.  I said:

"Yes; and what a duel!"  But, of course, I had no time to explain
anything to him.  The little viscount is a brave fellow, but he knew
hardly anything about his adversary; and it was so much the better.  My
great fear was that he was already somewhere near us, preparing the
Punjab lasso.  No one knows better than he how to throw the Punjab
lasso, for he is the king of stranglers even as he is the prince of
conjurors.  When he had finished making the little sultana laugh, at
the time of the "rosy hours of Mazenderan," she herself used to ask him
to amuse her by giving her a thrill.  It was then that he introduced
the sport of the Punjab lasso.

He had lived in India and acquired an incredible skill in the art of
strangulation.  He would make them lock him into a courtyard to which
they brought a warrior--usually, a man condemned to death--armed with a
long pike and broadsword.  Erik had only his lasso; and it was always
just when the warrior thought that he was going to fell Erik with a
tremendous blow that we heard the lasso whistle through the air.  With
a turn of the wrist, Erik tightened the noose round his adversary's
neck and, in this fashion, dragged him before the little sultana and
her women, who sat looking from a window and applauding.  The little
sultana herself learned to wield the Punjab lasso and killed several of
her women and even of the friends who visited her.  But I prefer to
drop this terrible subject of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  I have
mentioned it only to explain why, on arriving with the Vicomte de
Chagny in the cellars of the Opera, I was bound to protect my companion
against the ever-threatening danger of death by strangling.  My pistols
could serve no purpose, for Erik was not likely to show himself; but
Erik could always strangle us.  I had no time to explain all this to
the viscount; besides, there was nothing to be gained by complicating
the position.  I simply told M. de Chagny to keep his hand at the level
of his eyes, with the arm bent, as though waiting for the command to
fire.  With his victim in this attitude, it is impossible even for the
most expert strangler to throw the lasso with advantage.  It catches
you not only round the neck, but also round the arm or hand.  This
enables you easily to unloose the lasso, which then becomes harmless.

After avoiding the commissary of police, a number of door-shutters and
the firemen, after meeting the rat-catcher and passing the man in the
felt hat unperceived, the viscount and I arrived without obstacle in
the third cellar, between the set piece and the scene from the Roi de
Lahore.  I worked the stone, and we jumped into the house which Erik
had built himself in the double case of the foundation-walls of the
Opera.  And this was the easiest thing in the world for him to do,
because Erik was one of the chief contractors under Philippe Garnier,
the architect of the Opera, and continued to work by himself when the
works were officially suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and
the Commune.

I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into his
house.  I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan.
From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into
a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was
overheard or repeated by an echo.  With his trap-doors the monster was
responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds.  He hit upon
astonishing inventions.  Of these, the most curious, horrible and
dangerous was the so-called torture-chamber. Except in special cases,
when the little sultana amused herself by inflicting suffering upon
some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it but wretches condemned
to death.  And, even then, when these had "had enough," they were
always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or
bowstring, left for their use at the foot of an iron tree.

My alarm, therefore, was great when I saw that the room into which M.
le Vicomte de Chagny and I had dropped was an exact copy of the
torture-chamber of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  At our feet, I found
the Punjab lasso which I had been dreading all the evening.  I was
convinced that this rope had already done duty for Joseph Buquet, who,
like myself, must have caught Erik one evening working the stone in the
third cellar.  He probably tried it in his turn, fell into the
torture-chamber and only left it hanged.  I can well imagine Erik
dragging the body, in order to get rid of it, to the scene from the Roi
de Lahore, and hanging it there as an example, or to increase the
superstitious terror that was to help him in guarding the approaches to
his lair!  Then, upon reflection, Erik went back to fetch the Punjab
lasso, which is very curiously made out of catgut, and which might have
set an examining magistrate thinking.  This explains the disappearance
of the rope.

And now I discovered the lasso, at our feet, in the torture-chamber!
...  I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I moved
the little red disk of my lantern over the walls.

M. de Chagny noticed it and asked:

"What is the matter, sir?"

I made him a violent sign to be silent.



[1] An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end of
July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham was tracked,
together with his men, by our soldiers; and how all of them succeeded
in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds.

[2] DAROGA is Persian for chief of police.

[3] The Persian might easily have admitted that Erik's fate also
interested himself, for he was well aware that, if the government of
Teheran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have been all
up with the modest pension of the erstwhile daroga.  It is only fair,
however, to add that the Persian had a noble and generous heart; and I
do not doubt for a moment that the catastrophes which he feared for
others greatly occupied his mind.  His conduct, throughout this
business, proves it and is above all praise.





Chapter XXII  In the Torture Chamber


THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

We were in the middle of a little six-cornered room, the sides of which
were covered with mirrors from top to bottom.  In the corners, we could
clearly see the "joins" in the glasses, the segments intended to turn
on their gear; yes, I recognized them and I recognized the iron tree in
the corner, at the bottom of one of those segments ... the iron tree,
with its iron branch, for the hanged men.

I seized my companion's arm:  the Vicomte de Chagny was all a-quiver,
eager to shout to his betrothed that he was bringing her help.  I
feared that he would not be able to contain himself.

Suddenly, we heard a noise on our left.  It sounded at first like a
door opening and shutting in the next room; and then there was a dull
moan.  I clutched M. de Chagny's arm more firmly still; and then we
distinctly heard these words:

"You must make your choice!  The wedding mass or the requiem mass!" I
recognized the voice of the monster.

There was another moan, followed by a long silence.

I was persuaded by now that the monster was unaware of our presence in
his house, for otherwise he would certainly have managed not to let us
hear him.  He would only have had to close the little invisible window
through which the torture-lovers look down into the torture-chamber.
Besides, I was certain that, if he had known of our presence, the
tortures would have begun at once.

The important thing was not to let him know; and I dreaded nothing so
much as the impulsiveness of the Vicomte de Chagny, who wanted to rush
through the walls to Christine Daae, whose moans we continued to hear
at intervals.

"The requiem mass is not at all gay," Erik's voice resumed, "whereas
the wedding mass--you can take my word for it--is magnificent!  You
must take a resolution and know your own mind!  I can't go on living
like this, like a mole in a burrow!  Don Juan Triumphant is finished;
and now I want to live like everybody else.  I want to have a wife like
everybody else and to take her out on Sundays.  I have invented a mask
that makes me look like anybody.  People will not even turn round in
the streets.  You will be the happiest of women.  And we will sing, all
by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight.  You are crying!  You
are afraid of me!  And yet I am not really wicked.  Love me and you
shall see!  All I wanted was to be loved for myself.  If you loved me I
should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that
you pleased."

Soon the moans that accompanied this sort of love's litany increased
and increased.  I have never heard anything more despairing; and M. de
Chagny and I recognized that this terrible lamentation came from Erik
himself.  Christine seemed to be standing dumb with horror, without the
strength to cry out, while the monster was on his knees before her.

Three times over, Erik fiercely bewailed his fate:

"You don't love me!  You don't love me!  You don't love me!"

And then, more gently:

"Why do you cry?  You know it gives me pain to see you cry!"

A silence.

Each silence gave us fresh hope.  We said to ourselves:

"Perhaps he has left Christine behind the wall."

And we thought only of the possibility of warning Christine Daae of our
presence, unknown to the monster.  We were unable to leave the
torture-chamber now, unless Christine opened the door to us; and it was
only on this condition that we could hope to help her, for we did not
even know where the door might be.

Suddenly, the silence in the next room was disturbed by the ringing of
an electric bell.  There was a bound on the other side of the wall and
Erik's voice of thunder:

"Somebody ringing!  Walk in, please!"

A sinister chuckle.

"Who has come bothering now?  Wait for me here ...  I AM GOING TO TELL
THE SIREN TO OPEN THE DOOR."

Steps moved away, a door closed.  I had no time to think of the fresh
horror that was preparing; I forgot that the monster was only going out
perhaps to perpetrate a fresh crime; I understood but one thing:
Christine was alone behind the wall!

The Vicomte de Chagny was already calling to her:

"Christine!  Christine!"

As we could hear what was said in the next room, there was no reason
why my companion should not be heard in his turn.  Nevertheless, the
viscount had to repeat his cry time after time.

At last, a faint voice reached us.

"I am dreaming!" it said.

"Christine, Christine, it is I, Raoul!"

A silence.

"But answer me, Christine! ... In Heaven's name, if you are alone,
answer me!"

Then Christine's voice whispered Raoul's name.

"Yes!  Yes!  It is I!  It is not a dream! ... Christine, trust me! ...
We are here to save you ... but be prudent!  When you hear the monster,
warn us!"

Then Christine gave way to fear.  She trembled lest Erik should
discover where Raoul was hidden; she told us in a few hurried words
that Erik had gone quite mad with love and that he had decided TO KILL
EVERYBODY AND HIMSELF WITH EVERYBODY if she did not consent to become
his wife.  He had given her till eleven o'clock the next evening for
reflection.  It was the last respite.  She must choose, as he said,
between the wedding mass and the requiem.

And Erik had then uttered a phrase which Christine did not quite
understand:

"Yes or no!  If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"

But I understood the sentence perfectly, for it corresponded in a
terrible manner with my own dreadful thought.

"Can you tell us where Erik is?"  I asked.

She replied that he must have left the house.

"Could you make sure?"

"No. I am fastened.  I can not stir a limb."

When we heard this, M. de Chagny and I gave a yell of fury.  Our
safety, the safety of all three of us, depended on the girl's liberty
of movement.

"But where are you?" asked Christine.  "There are only two doors in my
room, the Louis-Philippe room of which I told you, Raoul; a door
through which Erik comes and goes, and another which he has never
opened before me and which he has forbidden me ever to go through,
because he says it is the most dangerous of the doors, the door of the
torture-chamber!"

"Christine, that is where we are!"

"You are in the torture-chamber?"

"Yes, but we can not see the door."

"Oh, if I could only drag myself so far!  I would knock at the door and
that would tell you where it is."

"Is it a door with a lock to it?"  I asked.

"Yes, with a lock."

"Mademoiselle," I said, "it is absolutely necessary, that you should
open that door to us!"

"But how?" asked the poor girl tearfully.

We heard her straining, trying to free herself from the bonds that held
her.

"I know where the key is," she said, in a voice that seemed exhausted
by the effort she had made.  "But I am fastened so tight ...  Oh, the
wretch!"

And she gave a sob.

"Where is the key?"  I asked, signing to M. de Chagny not to speak and
to leave the business to me, for we had not a moment to lose.

"In the next room, near the organ, with another little bronze key,
which he also forbade me to touch.  They are both in a little leather
bag which he calls the bag of life and death...  Raoul!  Raoul!  Fly!
Everything is mysterious and terrible here, and Erik will soon have
gone quite mad, and you are in the torture-chamber! ... Go back by the
way you came.  There must be a reason why the room is called by that
name!"

"Christine," said the young man.  "We will go from here together or die
together!"

"We must keep cool," I whispered.  "Why has he fastened you,
mademoiselle?  You can't escape from his house; and he knows it!"

"I tried to commit suicide!  The monster went out last night, after
carrying me here fainting and half chloroformed.  He was going TO HIS
BANKER, so he said! ... When he returned he found me with my face
covered with blood ...  I had tried to kill myself by striking my
forehead against the walls."

"Christine!" groaned Raoul; and he began to sob.

"Then he bound me ...  I am not allowed to die until eleven o'clock
to-morrow evening."

"Mademoiselle," I declared, "the monster bound you ... and he shall
unbind you.  You have only to play the necessary part!  Remember that
he loves you!"

"Alas!" we heard.  "Am I likely to forget it!"

"Remember it and smile to him ... entreat him ... tell him that your
bonds hurt you."

But Christine Daae said:

"Hush! ... I hear something in the wall on the lake! ... It is he! ...
Go away!  Go away!  Go away!"

"We could not go away, even if we wanted to," I said, as impressively
as I could.  "We can not leave this!  And we are in the
torture-chamber!"

"Hush!" whispered Christine again.

Heavy steps sounded slowly behind the wall, then stopped and made the
floor creak once more.  Next came a tremendous sigh, followed by a cry
of horror from Christine, and we heard Erik's voice:

"I beg your pardon for letting you see a face like this!  What a state
I am in, am I not?  It's THE OTHER ONE'S FAULT!  Why did he ring?  Do I
ask people who pass to tell me the time?  He will never ask anybody the
time again!  It is the siren's fault."

[Illustration: two page color illustration]

Another sigh, deeper, more tremendous still, came from the abysmal
depths of a soul.

"Why did you cry out, Christine?"

"Because I am in pain, Erik."

"I thought I had frightened you."

"Erik, unloose my bonds ...  Am I not your prisoner?"

"You will try to kill yourself again."

"You have given me till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening, Erik."

The footsteps dragged along the floor again.

"After all, as we are to die together ... and I am just as eager as you
... yes, I have had enough of this life, you know...  Wait, don't move,
I will release you ...  You have only one word to say:  'NO!' And it
will at once be over WITH EVERYBODY!  ... You are right, you are right;
why wait till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening?  True, it would have
been grander, finer ...  But that is childish nonsense ...  We should
only think of ourselves in this life, of our own death ... the rest
doesn't matter...  YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE I AM ALL WET? ...  Oh,
my dear, it's raining cats and dogs outside! ... Apart from that,
Christine, I think I am subject to hallucinations ...  You know, the
man who rang at the siren's door just now--go and look if he's ringing
at the bottom of the lake-well, he was rather like...  There, turn
round ... are you glad?  You're free now...  Oh, my poor Christine,
look at your wrists:  tell me, have I hurt them? ... That alone
deserves death ...  Talking of death, I MUST SING HIS REQUIEM!"

Hearing these terrible remarks, I received an awful presentiment ... I
too had once rung at the monster's door ... and, without knowing it,
must have set some warning current in motion.

And I remembered the two arms that had emerged from the inky waters...
What poor wretch had strayed to that shore this time?  Who was 'the
other one,' the one whose requiem we now heard sung?

Erik sang like the god of thunder, sang a DIES IRAE that enveloped us
as in a storm.  The elements seemed to rage around us.  Suddenly, the
organ and the voice ceased so suddenly that M. de Chagny sprang back,
on the other side of the wall, with emotion.  And the voice, changed
and transformed, distinctly grated out these metallic syllables: "WHAT
HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BAG?"




Chapter XXIII  The Tortures Begin


THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.

The voice repeated angrily:  "What have you done with my bag?  So it
was to take my bag that you asked me to release you!"

We heard hurried steps, Christine running back to the Louis-Philippe
room, as though to seek shelter on the other side of our wall.

"What are you running away for?" asked the furious voice, which had
followed her.  "Give me back my bag, will you?  Don't you know that it
is the bag of life and death?"

"Listen to me, Erik," sighed the girl.  "As it is settled that we are
to live together ... what difference can it make to you?"

"You know there are only two keys in it," said the monster.  "What do
you want to do?"

"I want to look at this room which I have never seen and which you have
always kept from me ...  It's woman's curiosity!" she said, in a tone
which she tried to render playful.

But the trick was too childish for Erik to be taken in by it.

"I don't like curious women," he retorted, "and you had better remember
the story of BLUE-BEARD and be careful ...  Come, give me back my bag!
... Give me back my bag! ... Leave the key alone, will you, you
inquisitive little thing?"

And he chuckled, while Christine gave a cry of pain.  Erik had
evidently recovered the bag from her.

At that moment, the viscount could not help uttering an exclamation of
impotent rage.

"Why, what's that?" said the monster.  "Did you hear, Christine?"

"No, no," replied the poor girl.  "I heard nothing."

"I thought I heard a cry."

"A cry!  Are you going mad, Erik?  Whom do you expect to give a cry, in
this house? ... I cried out, because you hurt me!  I heard nothing."

"I don't like the way you said that! ... You're trembling...  You're
quite excited ...  You're lying! ... That was a cry, there was a cry!
... There is some one in the torture-chamber! ...  Ah, I understand
now!"

"There is no one there, Erik!"

"I understand!"

"No one!"

"The man you want to marry, perhaps!"

"I don't want to marry anybody, you know I don't."

Another nasty chuckle.  "Well, it won't take long to find out.
Christine, my love, we need not open the door to see what is happening
in the torture-chamber. Would you like to see?  Would you like to see?
Look here!  If there is some one, if there is really some one there,
you will see the invisible window light up at the top, near the
ceiling.  We need only draw the black curtain and put out the light in
here.  There, that's it ...  Let's put out the light!  You're not
afraid of the dark, when you're with your little husband!"

Then we heard Christine's voice of anguish:

"No! ... I'm frightened! ... I tell you, I'm afraid of the dark! ...  I
don't care about that room now ...  You're always frightening me, like
a child, with your torture-chamber! ... And so I became inquisitive...
But I don't care about it now ... not a bit ... not a bit!"

And that which I feared above all things began, AUTOMATICALLY.  We were
suddenly flooded with light!  Yes, on our side of the wall, everything
seemed aglow.  The Vicomte de Chagny was so much taken aback that he
staggered.  And the angry voice roared:

"I told you there was some one!  Do you see the window now?  The
lighted window, right up there?  The man behind the wall can't see it!
But you shall go up the folding steps:  that is what they are there
for! ... You have often asked me to tell you; and now you know! ...
They are there to give a peep into the torture-chamber ... you
inquisitive little thing!"

"What tortures? ... Who is being tortured? ... Erik, Erik, say you are
only trying to frighten me! ... Say it, if you love me, Erik! ... There
are no tortures, are there?"

"Go and look at the little window, dear!"

I do not know if the viscount heard the girl's swooning voice, for he
was too much occupied by the astounding spectacle that now appeared
before his distracted gaze.  As for me, I had seen that sight too
often, through the little window, at the time of the rosy hours of
Mazenderan; and I cared only for what was being said next door, seeking
for a hint how to act, what resolution to take.

"Go and peep through the little window!  Tell me what he looks like!"

We heard the steps being dragged against the wall.

"Up with you! ... No! ... No, I will go up myself, dear!"

"Oh, very well, I will go up.  Let me go!"

"Oh, my darling, my darling! ... How sweet of you! ... How nice of you
to save me the exertion at my age! ... Tell me what he looks like!"

At that moment, we distinctly heard these words above our heads:

"There is no one there, dear!"

"No one? ... Are you sure there is no one?"

"Why, of course not ... no one!"

"Well, that's all right! ... What's the matter, Christine?  You're not
going to faint, are you ... as there is no one there? ...  Here ...
come down ... there! ... Pull yourself together ... as there is no one
there! ... BUT HOW DO YOU LIKE THE LANDSCAPE?"

"Oh, very much!"

"There, that's better! ... You're better now, are you not? ...  That's
all right, you're better! ... No excitement! ... And what a funny
house, isn't it, with landscapes like that in it?"

"Yes, it's like the Musee Grevin ...  But, say, Erik ... there are no
tortures in there! ... What a fright you gave me!"

"Why ... as there is no one there?"

"Did you design that room?  It's very handsome.  You're a great artist,
Erik."

"Yes, a great artist, in my own line."

"But tell me, Erik, why did you call that room the torture-chamber?"

"Oh, it's very simple.  First of all, what did you see?"

"I saw a forest."

"And what is in a forest?"

"Trees."

"And what is in a tree?"

"Birds."

"Did you see any birds?"

"No, I did not see any birds."

"Well, what did you see?  Think!  You saw branches And what are the
branches?" asked the terrible voice.  "THERE'S A GIBBET!  That is why I
call my wood the torture-chamber! ... You see, it's all a joke.  I
never express myself like other people.  But I am very tired of it! ...
I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture-chamber in my house
and of living like a mountebank, in a house with a false bottom! ...
I'm tired of it!  I want to have a nice, quiet flat, with ordinary
doors and windows and a wife inside it, like anybody else!  A wife whom
I could love and take out on Sundays and keep amused on week-days ...
Here, shall I show you some card-tricks? That will help us to pass a
few minutes, while waiting for eleven o'clock to-morrow evening ...  My
dear little Christine! ... Are you listening to me? ... Tell me you
love me! ...  No, you don't love me ... but no matter, you will! ...
Once, you could not look at my mask because you knew what was behind...
And now you don't mind looking at it and you forget what is behind! ...
One can get used to everything ... if one wishes...  Plenty of young
people who did not care for each other before marriage have adored each
other since!  Oh, I don't know what I am talking about!  But you would
have lots of fun with me.  For instance, I am the greatest
ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the
world! ... You're laughing ...  Perhaps you don't believe me?  Listen."

The wretch, who really was the first ventriloquist in the world, was
only trying to divert the child's attention from the torture-chamber;
but it was a stupid scheme, for Christine thought of nothing but us!
She repeatedly besought him, in the gentlest tones which she could
assume:

"Put out the light in the little window! ... Erik, do put out the light
in the little window!"

For she saw that this light, which appeared so suddenly and of which
the monster had spoken in so threatening a voice, must mean something
terrible.  One thing must have pacified her for a moment; and that was
seeing the two of us, behind the wall, in the midst of that resplendent
light, alive and well.  But she would certainly have felt much easier
if the light had been put out.

Meantime, the other had already begun to play the ventriloquist.  He
said:

"Here, I raise my mask a little ...  Oh, only a little! ...  You see my
lips, such lips as I have?  They're not moving! ... My mouth is
closed--such mouth as I have--and yet you hear my voice... Where will
you have it?  In your left ear?  In your right ear?  In the table?  In
those little ebony boxes on the mantelpiece? ...  Listen, dear, it's in
the little box on the right of the mantelpiece: what does it say?
'SHALL I TURN THE SCORPION?' ... And now, crack!  What does it say in
the little box on the left?  'SHALL I TURN THE GRASSHOPPER?' ... And
now, crack!  Here it is in the little leather bag ...  What does it
say?  'I AM THE LITTLE BAG OF LIFE AND DEATH!' ...  And now, crack!  It
is in Carlotta's throat, in Carlotta's golden throat, in Carlotta's
crystal throat, as I live!  What does it say?  It says, 'It's I, Mr.
Toad, it's I singing!  I FEEL WITHOUT ALARM--CO-ACK--WITH ITS MELODY
ENWIND ME--CO-ACK!' ...  And now, crack!  It is on a chair in the
ghost's box and it says, 'MADAME CARLOTTA IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING
THE CHANDELIER DOWN!' ... And now, crack!  Aha!  Where is Erik's voice
now?  Listen, Christine, darling!  Listen!  It is behind the door of
the torture-chamber! Listen!  It's myself in the torture-chamber! And
what do I say?  I say, 'Woe to them that have a nose, a real nose, and
come to look round the torture-chamber! Aha, aha, aha!'"

Oh, the ventriloquist's terrible voice!  It was everywhere, everywhere.
It passed through the little invisible window, through the walls.  It
ran around us, between us.  Erik was there, speaking to us!  We made a
movement as though to fling ourselves upon him.  But, already, swifter,
more fleeting than the voice of the echo, Erik's voice had leaped back
behind the wall!

Soon we heard nothing more at all, for this is what happened:

"Erik!  Erik!" said Christine's voice.  "You tire me with your voice.
Don't go on, Erik!  Isn't it very hot here?"

"Oh, yes," replied Erik's voice, "the heat is unendurable!"

"But what does this mean? ... The wall is really getting quite hot! ...
The wall is burning!"

"I'll tell you, Christine, dear:  it is because of the forest next
door."

"Well, what has that to do with it?  The forest?"

"WHY, DIDN'T YOU SEE THAT IT WAS AN AFRICAN FOREST?"

And the monster laughed so loudly and hideously that we could no longer
distinguish Christine's supplicating cries!  The Vicomte de Chagny
shouted and banged against the walls like a madman.  I could not
restrain him.  But we heard nothing except the monster's laughter, and
the monster himself can have heard nothing else.  And then there was
the sound of a body falling on the floor and being dragged along and a
door slammed and then nothing, nothing more around us save the
scorching silence of the south in the heart of a tropical forest!




Chapter XXIV  "Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any Barrels to Sell?"


THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I were
imprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors.  Plenty
of these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions: they are
called "palaces of illusion," or some such name.  But the invention
belongs entirely to Erik, who built the first room of this kind under
my eyes, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  A decorative
object, such as a column, for instance, was placed in one of the
corners and immediately produced a hall of a thousand columns; for,
thanks to the mirrors, the real room was multiplied by six hexagonal
rooms, each of which, in its turn, was multiplied indefinitely.  But
the little sultana soon tired of this infantile illusion, whereupon
Erik altered his invention into a "torture-chamber." For the
architectural motive placed in one corner, he substituted an iron tree.
This tree, with its painted leaves, was absolutely true to life and was
made of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the "patient" who was
locked into the torture-chamber.  We shall see how the scene thus
obtained was twice altered instantaneously into two successive other
scenes, by means of the automatic rotation of the drums or rollers in
the corners.  These were divided into three sections, fitting into the
angles of the mirrors and each supporting a decorative scheme that came
into sight as the roller revolved upon its axis.

The walls of this strange room gave the patient nothing to lay hold of,
because, apart from the solid decorative object, they were simply
furnished with mirrors, thick enough to withstand any onslaught of the
victim, who was flung into the chamber empty-handed and barefoot.

There was no furniture.  The ceiling was capable of being lit up.  An
ingenious system of electric heating, which has since been imitated,
allowed the temperature of the walls and room to be increased at will.

I am giving all these details of a perfectly natural invention,
producing, with a few painted branches, the supernatural illusion of an
equatorial forest blazing under the tropical sun, so that no one may
doubt the present balance of my brain or feel entitled to say that I am
mad or lying or that I take him for a fool.[1]

I now return to the facts where I left them.  When the ceiling lit up
and the forest became visible around us, the viscount's stupefaction
was immense.  That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable trunks and
branches, threw him into a terrible state of consternation.  He passed
his hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream; his eyes
blinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen.

I have already said that the sight of the forest did not surprise me at
all; and therefore I listened for the two of us to what was happening
next door.  Lastly, my attention was especially attracted, not so much
to the scene, as to the mirrors that produced it.  These mirrors were
broken in parts.  Yes, they were marked and scratched; they had been
"starred," in spite of their solidity; and this proved to me that the
torture-chamber in which we now were HAD ALREADY SERVED A PURPOSE.

Yes, some wretch, whose feet were not bare like those of the victims of
the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had certainly fallen into this "mortal
illusion" and, mad with rage, had kicked against those mirrors which,
nevertheless, continued to reflect his agony.  And the branch of the
tree on which he had put an end to his own sufferings was arranged in
such a way that, before dying, he had seen, for his last consolation, a
thousand men writhing in his company.

Yes, Joseph Buquet had undoubtedly been through all this!  Were we to
die as he had done?  I did not think so, for I knew that we had a few
hours before us and that I could employ them to better purpose than
Joseph Buquet was able to do.  After all, I was thoroughly acquainted
with most of Erik's "tricks;" and now or never was the time to turn my
knowledge to account.

To begin with, I gave up every idea of returning to the passage that
had brought us to that accursed chamber.  I did not trouble about the
possibility of working the inside stone that closed the passage; and
this for the simple reason that to do so was out of the question.  We
had dropped from too great a height into the torture-chamber; there was
no furniture to help us reach that passage; not even the branch of the
iron tree, not even each other's shoulders were of any avail.

There was only one possible outlet, that opening into the
Louis-Philippe room in which Erik and Christine Daae were.  But, though
this outlet looked like an ordinary door on Christine's side, it was
absolutely invisible to us.  We must therefore try to open it without
even knowing where it was.

When I was quite sure that there was no hope for us from Christine
Daae's side, when I had heard the monster dragging the poor girl from
the Louis-Philippe room LEST SHE SHOULD INTERFERE WITH OUR TORTURES, I
resolved to set to work without delay.

But I had first to calm M. de Chagny, who was already walking about
like a madman, uttering incoherent cries.  The snatches of conversation
which he had caught between Christine and the monster had contributed
not a little to drive him beside himself: add to that the shock of the
magic forest and the scorching heat which was beginning to make the
prespiration{sic} stream down his temples and you will have no
difficulty in understanding his state of mind.  He shouted Christine's
name, brandished his pistol, knocked his forehead against the glass in
his endeavors to run down the glades of the illusive forest.  In short,
the torture was beginning to work its spell upon a brain unprepared for
it.

I did my best to induce the poor viscount to listen to reason.  I made
him touch the mirrors and the iron tree and the branches and explained
to him, by optical laws, all the luminous imagery by which we were
surrounded and of which we need not allow ourselves to be the victims,
like ordinary, ignorant people.

"We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying to
yourself.  And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found the
door."

And I promised him that, if he let me act, without disturbing me by
shouting and walking up and down, I would discover the trick of the
door in less than an hour's time.

Then he lay flat on the floor, as one does in a wood, and declared that
he would wait until I found the door of the forest, as there was
nothing better to do!  And he added that, from where he was, "the view
was splendid!"  The torture was working, in spite of all that I had
said.

Myself, forgetting the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began to
finger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which to
press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system of
pivots.  This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass, no larger
than a pea, under which the spring lay hidden.  I hunted and hunted.  I
felt as high as my hands could reach.  Erik was about the same height
as myself and I thought that he would not have placed the spring higher
than suited his stature.

While groping over the successive panels with the greatest care, I
endeavored not to lose a minute, for I was feeling more and more
overcome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that blazing
forest.

I had been working like this for half an hour and had finished three
panels, when, as ill-luck would have it, I turned round on hearing a
muttered exclamation from the viscount.

"I am stifling," he said.  "All those mirrors are sending out an
infernal heat!  Do you think you will find that spring soon?  If you
are much longer about it, we shall be roasted alive!"

I was not sorry to hear him talk like this.  He had not said a word of
the forest and I hoped that my companion's reason would hold out some
time longer against the torture.  But he added:

"What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until eleven
to-morrow evening.  If we can't get out of here and go to her
assistance, at least we shall be dead before her!  Then Erik's mass can
serve for all of us!"

And he gulped down a breath of hot air that nearly made him faint.

As I had not the same desperate reasons as M. le Vicomte for accepting
death, I returned, after giving him a word of encouragement, to my
panel, but I had made the mistake of taking a few steps while speaking
and, in the tangle of the illusive forest, I was no longer able to find
my panel for certain!  I had to begin all over again, at random,
feeling, fumbling, groping.

Now the fever laid hold of me in my turn ... for I found nothing,
absolutely nothing.  In the next room, all was silence.  We were quite
lost in the forest, without an outlet, a compass, a guide or anything.
Oh, I knew what awaited us if nobody came to our aid ...  or if I did
not find the spring!  But, look as I might, I found nothing but
branches, beautiful branches that stood straight up before me, or
spread gracefully over my head.  But they gave no shade.  And this was
natural enough, as we were in an equatorial forest, with the sun right
above our heads, an African forest.

M. de Chagny and I had repeatedly taken off our coats and put them on
again, finding at one time that they made us feel still hotter and at
another that they protected us against the heat.  I was still making a
moral resistance, but M. de Chagny seemed to me quite "gone." He
pretended that he had been walking in that forest for three days and
nights, without stopping, looking for Christine Daae!  From time to
time, he thought he saw her behind the trunk of a tree, or gliding
between the branches; and he called to her with words of supplication
that brought the tears to my eyes.  And then, at last:

"Oh, how thirsty I am!" he cried, in delirious accents.

I too was thirsty.  My throat was on fire.  And, yet, squatting on the
floor, I went on hunting, hunting, hunting for the spring of the
invisible door ... especially as it was dangerous to remain in the
forest as evening drew nigh.  Already the shades of night were
beginning to surround us.  It had happened very quickly: night falls
quickly in tropical countries ... suddenly, with hardly any twilight.

Now night, in the forests of the equator, is always dangerous,
particularly when, like ourselves, one has not the materials for a fire
to keep off the beasts of prey.  I did indeed try for a moment to break
off the branches, which I would have lit with my dark lantern, but I
knocked myself also against the mirrors and remembered, in time, that
we had only images of branches to do with.

The heat did not go with the daylight; on the contrary, it was now
still hotter under the blue rays of the moon.  I urged the viscount to
hold our weapons ready to fire and not to stray from camp, while I went
on looking for my spring.

Suddenly, we heard a lion roaring a few yards away.

"Oh," whispered the viscount, "he is quite close! ... Don't you see
him? ... There ... through the trees ... in that thicket!  If he roars
again, I will fire! ..."

And the roaring began again, louder than before.  And the viscount
fired, but I do not think that he hit the lion; only, he smashed a
mirror, as I perceived the next morning, at daybreak.  We must have
covered a good distance during the night, for we suddenly found
ourselves on the edge of the desert, an immense desert of sand, stones
and rocks.  It was really not worth while leaving the forest to come
upon the desert.  Tired out, I flung myself down beside the viscount,
for I had had enough of looking for springs which I could not find.

I was quite surprised--and I said so to the viscount--that we had
encountered no other dangerous animals during the night.  Usually,
after the lion came the leopard and sometimes the buzz of the tsetse
fly.  These were easily obtained effects; and I explained to M. de
Chagny that Erik imitated the roar of a lion on a long tabour or
timbrel, with an ass's skin at one end.  Over this skin he tied a
string of catgut, which was fastened at the middle to another similar
string passing through the whole length of the tabour.  Erik had only
to rub this string with a glove smeared with resin and, according to
the manner in which he rubbed it, he imitated to perfection the voice
of the lion or the leopard, or even the buzzing of the tsetse fly.

The idea that Erik was probably in the room beside us, working his
trick, made me suddenly resolve to enter into a parley with him, for we
must obviously give up all thought of taking him by surprise.  And by
this time he must be quite aware who were the occupants of his
torture-chamber. I called him:  "Erik!  Erik!"

I shouted as loudly as I could across the desert, but there was no
answer to my voice.  All around us lay the silence and the bare
immensity of that stony desert.  What was to become of us in the midst
of that awful solitude?

We were beginning literally to die of heat, hunger and thirst ...  of
thirst especially.  At last, I saw M. de Chagny raise himself on his
elbow and point to a spot on the horizon.  He had discovered an oasis!

Yes, far in the distance was an oasis ... an oasis with limpid water,
which reflected the iron trees! ... Tush, it was the scene of the
mirage ...  I recognized it at once ... the worst of the three! ... No
one had been able to fight against it ... no one...  I did my utmost to
keep my head AND NOT TO HOPE FOR WATER, because I knew that, if a man
hoped for water, the water that reflected the iron tree, and if, after
hoping for water, he struck against the mirror, then there was only one
thing for him to do: to hang himself on the iron tree!

So I cried to M. de Chagny:

"It's the mirage! ... It's the mirage! ... Don't believe in the water!
... It's another trick of the mirrors! ..."

Then he flatly told me to shut up, with my tricks of the mirrors, my
springs, my revolving doors and my palaces of illusions!  He angrily
declared that I must be either blind or mad to imagine that all that
water flowing over there, among those splendid, numberless trees, was
not real water! ... And the desert was real!  ... And so was the
forest! ... And it was no use trying to take him in ... he was an old,
experienced traveler ... he had been all over the place!

And he dragged himself along, saying:  "Water!  Water!"

And his mouth was open, as though he were drinking.

And my mouth was open too, as though I were drinking.

For we not only saw the water, but WE HEARD IT! ... We heard it flow,
we heard it ripple! ... Do you understand that word "ripple?" ... IT IS
A SOUND WHICH YOU HEAR WITH YOUR TONGUE!  ... You put your tongue out
of your mouth to listen to it better!

Lastly--and this was the most pitiless torture of all--we heard the
rain and it was not raining!  This was an infernal invention...  Oh, I
knew well enough how Erik obtained it!  He filled with little stones a
very long and narrow box, broken up inside with wooden and metal
projections.  The stones, in falling, struck against these projections
and rebounded from one to another; and the result was a series of
pattering sounds that exactly imitated a rainstorm.

Ah, you should have seen us putting out our tongues and dragging
ourselves toward the rippling river-bank! Our eyes and ears were full
of water, but our tongues were hard and dry as horn!

When we reached the mirror, M. de Chagny licked it ... and I also
licked the glass.

It was burning hot!

Then we rolled on the floor with a hoarse cry of despair.  M. de Chagny
put the one pistol that was still loaded to his temple; and I stared at
the Punjab lasso at the foot of the iron tree.  I knew why the iron
tree had returned, in this third change of scene! ...  The iron tree
was waiting for me! ...

But, as I stared at the Punjab lasso, I saw a thing that made me start
so violently that M. de Chagny delayed his attempt at suicide.  I took
his arm.  And then I caught the pistol from him ... and then I dragged
myself on my knees toward what I had seen.

I had discovered, near the Punjab lasso, in a groove in the floor, a
black-headed nail of which I knew the use.  At last I had discovered
the spring!  I felt the nail ...  I lifted a radiant face to M. de
Chagny ...  The black-headed nail yielded to my pressure ...

And then ...

And then we saw not a door opened in the wall, but a cellar-flap
released in the floor.  Cool air came up to us from the black hole
below.  We stooped over that square of darkness as though over a limpid
well.  With our chins in the cool shade, we drank it in.  And we bent
lower and lower over the trap-door. What could there be in that cellar
which opened before us?  Water?  Water to drink?

I thrust my arm into the darkness and came upon a stone and another
stone ... a staircase ... a dark staircase leading into the cellar.
The viscount wanted to fling himself down the hole; but I, fearing a
new trick of the monster's, stopped him, turned on my dark lantern and
went down first.

The staircase was a winding one and led down into pitchy darkness.  But
oh, how deliciously cool were the darkness and the stairs?  The lake
could not be far away.

We soon reached the bottom.  Our eyes were beginning to accustom
themselves to the dark, to distinguish shapes around us ...  circular
shapes ... on which I turned the light of my lantern.

Barrels!

We were in Erik's cellar:  it was here that he must keep his wine and
perhaps his drinking-water. I knew that Erik was a great lover of good
wine.  Ah, there was plenty to drink here!

M. de Chagny patted the round shapes and kept on saying:

"Barrels!  Barrels!  What a lot of barrels! ..."

Indeed, there was quite a number of them, symmetrically arranged in two
rows, one on either side of us.  They were small barrels and I thought
that Erik must have selected them of that size to facilitate their
carriage to the house on the lake.

We examined them successively, to see if one of them had not a funnel,
showing that it had been tapped at some time or another.  But all the
barrels were hermetically closed.

Then, after half lifting one to make sure it was full, we went on our
knees and, with the blade of a small knife which I carried, I prepared
to stave in the bung-hole.

At that moment, I seemed to hear, coming from very far, a sort of
monotonous chant which I knew well, from often hearing it in the
streets of Paris:

"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell?"

My hand desisted from its work.  M. de Chagny had also heard.  He said:

"That's funny!  It sounds as if the barrel were singing!"

The song was renewed, farther away:

"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell? ..."

"Oh, I swear," said the viscount, "that the tune dies away in the
barrel! ..."

We stood up and went to look behind the barrel.

"It's inside," said M. de Chagny, "it's inside!"

But we heard nothing there and were driven to accuse the bad condition
of our senses.  And we returned to the bung-hole. M. de Chagny put his
two hands together underneath it and, with a last effort, I burst the
bung.

"What's this?" cried the viscount.  "This isn't water!"

The viscount put his two full hands close to my lantern ...  I stooped
to look ... and at once threw away the lantern with such violence that
it broke and went out, leaving us in utter darkness.

What I had seen in M. de Chagny's hands ... was gun-powder!



[1] It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing,
he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity on
the part of those who were likely to read his narrative.  Nowadays,
when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions would be
superfluous.





Chapter XXV  The Scorpion or the Grasshopper:  Which?


THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED

The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget all
our past and present sufferings.  We now knew all that the monster
meant to convey when he said to Christine Daae:

"Yes or no!  If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"

Yes, buried under the ruins of the Paris Grand Opera!

The monster had given her until eleven o'clock in the evening.  He had
chosen his time well.  There would be many people, many "members of the
human race," up there, in the resplendent theater.  What finer retinue
could be expected for his funeral?  He would go down to the tomb
escorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richest
jewels.

Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!

We were all to be blown up in the middle of the performance ...  if
Christine Daae said no!

Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening! ...

And what else could Christine say but no?  Would she not prefer to
espouse death itself rather than that living corpse?  She did not know
that on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of many
members of the human race!

Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!

And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to the
stone steps, for the light in the trap-door overhead that led to the
room of mirrors was now extinguished; and we repeated to ourselves:

"Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!"

At last, I found the staircase.  But, suddenly I drew myself up on the
first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind:

"What is the time?"

Ah, what was the time? ... For, after all, eleven o'clock to-morrow
evening might be now, might be this very moment!  Who could tell us the
time?  We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days
... for years ... since the beginning of the world.  Perhaps we should
be blown up then and there!  Ah, a sound!  A crack!  "Did you hear
that? ... There, in the corner ... good heavens! ...  Like a sound of
machinery! ... Again! ... Oh, for a light! ...  Perhaps it's the
machinery that is to blow everything up! ...  I tell you, a cracking
sound:  are you deaf?"

M. de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen.  Fear spurred us on.  We
rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anything
to escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room of
mirrors!

We found the trap-door still open, but it was now as dark in the room
of mirrors as in the cellar which we had left.  We dragged ourselves
along the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated us
from the powder-magazine. What was the time?  We shouted, we called: M.
de Chagny to Christine, I to Erik.  I reminded him that I had saved his
life.  But no answer, save that of our despair, of our madness: what
was the time?  We argued, we tried to calculate the time which we had
spent there, but we were incapable of reasoning.  If only we could see
the face of a watch! ...  Mine had stopped, but M. de Chagny's was
still going ...  He told me that he had wound it up before dressing for
the Opera ...  We had not a match upon us ...  And yet we must know ...
M. de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands... He
questioned the hands of the watch with his finger-tips, going by the
position of the ring of the watch ...  Judging by the space between the
hands, he thought it might be just eleven o'clock!

But perhaps it was not the eleven o'clock of which we stood in dread.
Perhaps we had still twelve hours before us!

Suddenly, I exclaimed:  "Hush!"

I seemed to hear footsteps in the next room.  Some one tapped against
the wall.  Christine Daae's voice said:

"Raoul!  Raoul!"  We were now all talking at once, on either side of
the wall.  Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M. de
Chagny alive.  The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done
nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the "yes" which she
refused.  And yet she had promised him that "yes," if he would take her
to the torture-chamber. But he had obstinately declined, and had
uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race!  At
last, after hours and hours of that hell, he had that moment gone out,
leaving her alone to reflect for the last time.

"Hours and hours?  What is the time now?  What is the time, Christine?"

"It is eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock, all but five minutes!"

"But which eleven o'clock?"

"The eleven o'clock that is to decide life or death! ... He told me so
just before he went ...  He is terrible ...  He is quite mad: he tore
off his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames! ... He did nothing but
laugh! ... He said, 'I give you five minutes to spare your blushes!
Here,' he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death,
'here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the
mantelpiece in the Louis-Philippe room...  In one of the caskets, you
will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly
imitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you.  If you
turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you
have said yes.  The grasshopper will mean no.'  And he laughed like a
drunken demon.  I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the
key of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me
that request ...  But he told me that there was no future need for that
key and that he was going to throw it into the lake! ...  And he again
laughed like a drunken demon and left me.  Oh, his last words were,
'The grasshopper!  Be careful of the grasshopper!  A grasshopper does
not only turn:  it hops!  It hops!  And it hops jolly high!'"

The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and the
grasshopper were scratching at my brain.  Nevertheless, I had
sufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper were
turned, it would hop ... and with it many members of the human race!
There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric
current intended to blow up the powder-magazine!

M. de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from
hearing Christine's voice, explained to her, in a few hurried words,
the situation in which we and all the Opera were.  He told her to turn
the scorpion at once.

There was a pause.

"Christine," I cried, "where are you?"

"By the scorpion."

"Don't touch it!"

The idea had come to me--for I knew my Erik--that the monster had
perhaps deceived the girl once more.  Perhaps it was the scorpion that
would blow everything up.  After all, why wasn't he there?  The five
minutes were long past ... and he was not back...  Perhaps he had taken
shelter and was waiting for the explosion!  ... Why had he not
returned? ... He could not really expect Christine ever to consent to
become his voluntary prey! ... Why had he not returned?

"Don't touch the scorpion!"  I said.

"Here he comes!" cried Christine.  "I hear him!  Here he is!"

We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room.  He came up to
Christine, but did not speak.  Then I raised my voice:

"Erik!  It is I!  Do you know me?"

With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied:

"So you are not dead in there?  Well, then, see that you keep quiet."

I tried to speak, but he said coldly:

"Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up."  And he added,
"The honor rests with mademoiselle ...  Mademoiselle has not touched
the scorpion"--how deliberately he spoke!--"mademoiselle has not
touched the grasshopper"--with that composure!--"but it is not too late
to do the right thing.  There, I open the caskets without a key, for I
am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please.
I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dears
inside.  Aren't they pretty?  If you turn the grasshopper,
mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up.  There is enough gun-powder
under our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris.  If you turn the
scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned.
Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome
present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a
poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's ... you shall make them a present of
their lives ...  For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the
scorpion ...  And merrily, merrily, we will be married!"

A pause; and then:

"If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I
shall turn the grasshopper ... and the grasshopper, I tell you, HOPS
JOLLY HIGH!"

The terrible silence began anew.  The Vicomte de Chagny, realizing that
there was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees and
prayed.  As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that I had to take my
heart in both hands, lest it should burst.  At last, we heard Erik's
voice:

"The two minutes are past ...  Good-by, mademoiselle...  Hop,
grasshopper!  "Erik," cried Christine, "do you swear to me, monster, do
you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?

"Yes, to hop at our wedding."

"Ah, you see!  You said, to hop!"

"At our wedding, ingenuous child! ... The scorpion opens the ball...
But that will do! ... You won't have the scorpion?  Then I turn the
grasshopper!"

"Erik!"

"Enough!"

I was crying out in concert with Christine.  M. de Chagny was still on
his knees, praying.

"Erik!  I have turned the scorpion!"

Oh, the second through which we passed!

Waiting!  Waiting to find ourselves in fragments, amid the roar and the
ruins!

Feeling something crack beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hiss
through the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket!

It came softly, at first, then louder, then very loud.  But it was not
the hiss of fire.  It was more like the hiss of water.  And now it
became a gurgling sound:  "Guggle!  Guggle!"

We rushed to the trap-door. All our thirst, which vanished when the
terror came, now returned with the lapping of the water.

The water rose in the cellar, above the barrels, the
powder-barrels--"Barrels! ...  Barrels!  Any barrels to sell?"--and we
went down to it with parched throats.  It rose to our chins, to our
mouths. And we drank.  We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank.
And we went up the stairs again in the dark, step by step, went up with
the water.

The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of
the room.  If, this went on, the whole house on the lake would be
swamped.  The floor of the torture-chamber had itself become a regular
little lake, in which our feet splashed.  Surely there was water enough
now!  Erik must turn off the tap!

"Erik!  Erik!  That is water enough for the gunpowder!  Turn off the
tap!  Turn off the scorpion!"

But Erik did not reply.  We heard nothing but the water rising: it was
half-way to our waists!

"Christine!" cried M. de Chagny.  "Christine!  The water is up to our
knees!"

But Christine did not reply ...  We heard nothing but the water rising.

No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turn
the scorpion!

We were all alone, in the dark, with the dark water that seized us and
clasped us and froze us!

"Erik!  Erik!"

"Christine!  Christine!"

By this time, we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in the
water, carried away by an irresistible whirl, for the water turned with
us and dashed us against the dark mirror, which thrust us back again;
and our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud.

Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seen
that.  Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had never
shown me that, through the little invisible window.

"Erik!  Erik!"  I cried.  "I saved your life!  Remember! ... You were
sentenced to death!  But for me, you would be dead now! ...  Erik!"

We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage.  But, suddenly,
my straying hands seized the trunk of the iron tree!  I called M. de
Chagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree.

And the water rose still higher.

"Oh!  Oh!  Can you remember?  How much space is there between the
branch of the tree and the dome-shaped ceiling?  Do try to remember!
...  After all, the water may stop, it must find its level! ... There,
I think it is stopping! ... No, no, oh, horrible! ... Swim!  Swim for
your life!"

Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; we
fought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air
above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear
escaping through some vent-hole or other.

"Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then
glue our mouths to it!"

But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls!  Oh, how
those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers! ... We whirled
round again! ... We began to sink!  ... One last effort! ... A last
cry:  "Erik! ... Christine! ..."

"Guggle, guggle, guggle!" in our ears.  "Guggle!  Guggle!"  At the
bottom of the dark water, our ears went, "Guggle!  Guggle!"

And, before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear, between
two guggles:

"Barrels!  Barrels!  Any barrels to sell?"

 The Persian tells his account of his previous attempts to enter Erik's house. One day when he thought he was alone, he stepped into the boat and rowed toward that part of the wall through which he had seen Erik disappear. It was then that he came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach, and whose charm was nearly fatal to him. As he was rowing, two monstrous arms from the water seized him by the neck, dragging him down with irresistible force. The Persian said he would have been lost had he not called out to Erik, who swam with him and laid him down gently on the bank. Erik asks the Persian why he tried to enter his house and told him to leave him alone. Erik starts laughing, and the Persian scolds him for making light of the situation: Erik had promised the Persian that he would commit no more murders, and yet he was the one who made the chandelier fall in the Opera House. Erik denies having tampered the chandelier, laughing and saying that it was worn and old. From that day on, the Persian gave up all thought of penetrating into Erik's lake house. In the days following, the Persian came to learn about Erik's relationship with Christine. The Persian attempted to learn more and watched on the bank of the lake, which annoyed Erik. Erik told the Persian to leave him and Christine alone or else people would die. Erik strikes a deal with the Persian that if he proves to the Persian that he is loved by Christine for his own sake, the Persian will leave him alone. To the Persian's astonishment, Christine left the house on the lake and returned to it several times, without, apparently, being forced to do so. The Persian continued to be interested in the relations of Erik and Christine. The Persian thought that Erik - being driven from his house by jealousy - would thus enable him to enter it, without danger, through the passage that he discovered in the third cellar. It was important for everyone's safety that he know what exactly was inside. The night Christine was abducted, the Persian recounts, he was prepared. He had Darius get two pistols. The rest of account recalls his encounter with Raoul and taking him along to Erik's home. He notes that one of the most dangerous trapdoors that Erik setup throughout the Opera House was that of the torture chamber: it was inspired by the chamber that the Little Sultana of Persia had for the torture of unoffending citizens. Those thrown in were always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or bowstring, left for their use at the foot of an iron tree. The account of the Persian continues, and he describes with considerable detail the contents of the chamber: the Persian and Raoul were in the center of a little six-cornered room, the sides of which were covered with mirrors from top to bottom. They hear a noise on their left, and recognize Erik's voice. He is talking to Christine about his love and wanting to marry her. He leaves to attend to someone at the door, and it is then that Raoul calls out to Christine. She tells him that Erik had gone mad with love and that he had decided to kill everybody, including himself, if she did not consent to become his wife. He had given her till 11pm the next evening to make her decision. She must choose between the wedding mass and the requiem. Christine also notes that Erik has tied her down , to which Raoul and the Persian respond with anger. She says that the key to the torture chamber is in Erik's possession. Erik soon returns and apologizes to Christine for the interruption. Christine asks him to release her, and - after she promises not to kill herself before 11pm the next evening - he takes off her bonds. Erik then begins singing but suddenly stops after noticing that his bag disappeared. The account of the Persian continues. Erik angrily asks Christine again what she has done with his bag. Christine runs back to the room, saying she is curious to see what is in the room that he has never shown her. Erik soon recovers the bag from her, and hears something from within the torture chamber. Christine attempts to convince him that there is nothing there, but he decides to take a look for himself. Erik says that if there is someone on the inside, the spectator on the outside of the chamber is able to see through the invisible window light up at the top, near the ceiling. Erik only needs to draw the black curtain and put out the light in the bedroom. The torture chamber is suddenly flooded with light. Christine insists on peeping through the little window to see if there is anyone in the chamber, and says that there is no one there. Erik attempts to distract Christine from the chamber by attempting a ventriloquist act, but is unsuccessful. She asks him to turn off the light in the chamber, but Erik does not. Instead he starts laughing so loud that the Persian and Raoul are unable to distinguish Christine's supplicating cries. Raoul shouted and banged against the walls like a madman, and the Persian could not restrain him. They hear nothing but Erik's laughter and then the sound of a body falling on the floor and being dragged along and a door slamming. The Persian notes that the torture chamber is actually a palace of illusion, lined entirely with mirrors. There is no furniture, and the ceiling is capable of being lit up. The Persian calls it an "ingenious" system of electric heating, which allows the temperature of the walls and room to be increased at will. The Persian notes that there is only one possible outlet opening into the room that Christine and Erik were in. But though this outlet looks like an ordinary door on Christine's side, it is absolutely invisible to them on the inside. The Persian resolves to open it without even knowing where it was. But before they could look for the door, the Persian had to calm Raoul down, who was already acting like a madman: the chamber was taking its toll on him. The Persian attempts to induce Raoul to listen to reason and promised him that - if he let him work in peace, without shouting and walking up and down - he would be able to discover the trick of the door in less than an hour. Raoul lies flat on the floor and decides to wait until the Persian finds the door. The Persian gets to work and begins to feel every panel, looking for the weak point on which to press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system of pivots. The Persian loses his place after taking a few steps away from the wall while talking to Raoul, and has to start all over again. They repeatedly have to take their coats off and put them on again: to cool down but also to protect against the heat. It is soon nighttime, but the heat does not go away with the daylight. The idea that Erik was probably in the room beside them, working his trick, made the Persian suddenly resolve to enter into a negotiation with him, because he thought that they needed to give up any hope of taking Erik by surprise. The Persian began shouting, but to no avail. The heat becomes so intense that both of them roll on the floor with a hoarse cry of despair. The Persian sees a groove in the floor near the Punjab lasso - specifically a black-headed nail that yields to pressure. The Persian pushes it, opening a cellar-flap in the floor. Cool air comes up from the black hole below. The Persian thrusts his arm into the hole and comes upon a staircase leading into the cellar. They soon reach the bottom, and find that the barrels in the cellar are not full of wine, but rather are full of gunpowder. They realize that Erik plans to blow up the Opera House. They begin to yell like madmen, full of fear. They rush up the treads of the staircase to escape the dark cellar. They try to figure out the time, but they are unsuccessful. Then they hear footsteps in the next room. Christine calls out to them and says that it is only five minutes to 11pm. Erik comes into the room, and the Persian attempts to talk to him. Erik tells him to keep quiet and wait for Christine to make the decision. They wait in silence, and Raoul begins to pray, realizing there is nothing else that could be done. Christine decides to marry Erik; as a result, water rises in the cellar, above the barrels, and the Persian and Raoul drink the water to their satisfaction. The floor of the torture chamber soon becomes like a lake as the water continues to rise. They yell to Erik to shut off the water, but in the dark, the water seizes and freezes them. Their arms become entangled in the effort to swim. They choke and slowly lose their strength. Before losing consciousness, the Persian seems to hear someone ask if there any barrels to sell. The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative of the Persian. It turns out Christine saves Raoul and the Persian. When the Persian opens his eyes, he finds himself lying on a bed. Raoul is on a sofa, beside a wardrobe. Erik asks the Persian how he is doing. Christine does not say a word, walking about noiselessly. Erik says that Raoul came to long before he did. Raoul is well and is asleep. Erik leaves the room and returns with some little bottles that he places on his mantelpiece. He tells the Persian that he will take both of them up to the surface of the earth to please Christine, his wife. Eventually the Persian falls asleep and does not wake until he is in his own room, nursed by Darius, who tells him that the night before, he was found propped against the door of his flat, where he had been brought by a stranger. As soon as the Persian recovers his strength, he sends to Count Philippe's house to inquire after Raoul's health. The answer is that Raoul was nowhere to be found, and that Philippe was found dead on the bank of the Opera Lake, on the Rue Scribe side . The Persian, determined to tell the press about what happened, is writing his narrative just as Erik knocks on his door. Erik looks extremely weak and leans against the wall. Erik says that the death of Philippe was an accident, and that he was too late to save him: the siren had already killed him. Erik has come to the Persian to tell him that he is going to die of love. Erik says that he kissed Christine on her forehead and that she did not draw back her forehead from his lips. Erik says that although he took the Persian up to the surface, he locked Raoul up in the Communists' dungeon, which is in the most deserted and remote part of the Opera, below the fifth cellar, where no one ever comes, and where no one can ever be heard. Then Erik came back for Christine, who was waiting for him. Both Erik and Christine cried together, and Erik then told her that she could marry Raoul when she pleased, because she had cried with him and mingled her tears with his tears. Erik's emotion is so great as he is telling the Persian his story that he has to tell the Persian not to look at him. The Persian's heart is full of pity. Erik says he ultimately released Raoul and took him to Christine. Christine and Raoul kissed, and Erik made Christine promise that she would come back and visit him. Then Christine kissed Erik on the forehead. The Persian asks Erik no questions, reassured that Christine and Raoul were going to be together. Erik resumes his mask and tells Persian that when he is nearing his end, he will send for him. The Persian sees Erik to the door of his flat, and Darius helps him down to the street. Erik steps in the cab and the Persian hears him tell the driver to go to the Opera. Three weeks later, the Epoque newspaper publishes an advertisement that Erik is dead. Leroux notes that there are many proofs of his existence within the reach of everybody, that they can follow Erik's actions logically through the whole tragedy of the Chagnys. Raoul and Christine one day take the train from "the northern railway station of the world." Mamma Valerius disappeared around the same time. The Persian alone knew the whole truth and held the main proofs, which came to him with the relics promised by Erik at the time of his death. Leroux debunks many of the mysteries of the ghost: how he took the money from the managers and even how he projected his voice within Box Five . He also notes that Erik was born in a small French town called Rouen and ran away from his father's house, where his ugliness was a subject of horror and terror to his parents. He frequented fairs and circuses for some time and then went to the Persian Empire, where the Shah took a liking to him. Having built an impenetrable and magnificent palace for the Shah, Erik was seen as a liability because he might give away the information to someone else. He was thus put to death but the Persian saved him . Erik went to Asia Minor and then to Paris, where he tendered for part of the foundations in the Opera. The rest is the subject of the book itself. The skeleton was lying near the little well, in the place where Erik held Christine fainting in his arms, on the night when he carried her down to the cellars of the Opera House.

