Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts | Page 5

side of it could judge--pairs of gigantic stone
figures supported archways pierced in the wall; or sluices, rather, since
from every archway but one a full stream of water issued and poured
down the sides of the hill. The one dry archway was that which faced
us with open gate, and towards which Harry led the way; for oppression
and terror now weighted my hand as with lead upon Grey Sultan's rein.
Harry, however, rode forward resolutely, dismounted almost in the very
shadow of the great arch, and waited, smoothing his mare's neck. But
for the invitation in his eyes, which were solemn, yet without a trace of
fear, I had never dared that last hundred yards. For above the rush of
waters I heard now a confused sound within the building--the thud and
clanking of heavy machinery, and at intervals a human groan; and
looking up I saw that the long friezes in bas-relief represented men and
women tortured and torturing with all conceivable variety of method
and circumstance--flayed, racked, burned, torn asunder, loaded with
weights, pinched with hot irons, and so on without end. And it added to
the horror of these sculptures that while the limbs and even the dress of
each figure were carved with elaborate care and nicety of detail, the
faces of all--of those who applied the torture and of those who looked
on, as well as of the sufferers themselves--were left absolutely blank.
On the same plan the two Titans beside the great archway had no faces.
The sculptor had traced the muscles of each belly in a constriction of
anguish, and had suggested this anguish again in moulding the neck,
even in disposing the hair of the head; but the neck supported, and the
locks fell around, a space of smooth stone without a feature.
Harry allowed me no time to feed on these horrors. Signing to me to
dismount and leave Grey Sultan at the entrance, he led me through the
long archway or tunnel. At the end we paused again, he watching,
while I drew difficult breath. . . .
I saw a vast amphitheatre of granite, curving away on either hand and
reaching up, tier on tier, till the tiers melted in the grey sky overhead.
The lowest tier stood twenty feet above my head; yet curved with so
lordly a perspective that on the far side of the arena, as I looked across,
it seemed almost level with the ground; while the human figures about

the great archway yonder were diminished to the size of ants about a
hole. . . For there were human figures busy in the arena, though not a
soul sat in any of the granite tiers above. A million eyes had been less
awful than those empty benches staring down in the cold dawn; bench
after bench repeating the horror of the featureless carvings by the
entrance-gate--repeating it in series without end, and unbroken, save at
one point midway along the semicircle on my right, where the imperial
seat stood out, crowned like a catafalque with plumes of purple
horse-hair, and screened close with heavy purple hangings. I saw these
curtains shake once or twice in the morning wind.
The floor of this amphitheatre I have spoken of as an arena; but as a
matter of fact it was laid with riveted sheets of copper that recalled the
dead men's shelves in the Paris morgue. The centre had been raised
some few feet higher than the circumference, or possibly the whole
floor took its shape from the rounded hill of which it was the apex; and
from an open sluice immediately beneath the imperial throne a flood of
water gushed with a force that carried it straight to this raised centre,
over which it ran and rippled, and so drained back into the scuppers at
the circumference. Before reaching the centre it broke and swirled
around a row of what appeared to be tall iron boxes or cages, set
directly in face of the throne. But for these ugly boxes the whole floor
was empty. To and from these the little human figures were hurrying,
and from these too proceeded the thuds and panting and the frequent
groans that I had heard outside.
While I stood and gazed, Harry stepped forward into the arena. "This
also?" I whispered.
He nodded, and led the way over the copper floor, where the water ran
high as our ankles and again was drained off, until little dry spaces
grew like maps upon the surface, and in ten seconds were flooded again.
He led me straight to the cages, and I saw that while the roof and three
sides of these were of sheet iron, the fourth side, which faced the throne,
lay open. And I saw--in the