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!