ber, which ran under the arched
foundations of the temple. The grating was approached by a secret
subterranean passage leading from the front of the building, by which
the sacrificing priests were enabled to reach the dead body, to fasten
weights to it, and opening the grating, to drop it into the river,
never to be beheld again by mortal eyes.

In the days when this engine of destruction was permitted to serve the
purpose for which the horrible ingenuity of its inventors had
constructed it, its principal victims were young girls. Crowned with
flowers, and clad in white garments, they were lured into immolating
themselves by being furnished with rich offerings, and told that the
sole object of their fatal expedition down the steps of the vault was
to realise the pictures adorning its walls (which we have described a
few pages back), by presenting their gifts at the shrine of the idol
below.

At the period of which we write, the dragon had for many years--since
the first prohibitions of Paganism--ceased to be fed with its wonted
prey. The scales forming its body grew gradually corroded and loosened
by the damp; and when moved by the wind which penetrated to them from
beneath, whistling up in its tortuous course through the tunnel that
ran in one direction below, and the vault of the steps that ascended in
another above, produced the clashing sound which has been mentioned as
audible at intervals from the mouth of the cavity. But the springs
which moved the deadly apparatus of the whole machine being placed
within it, under cover, continued to resist the slow progress of time
and of neglect, and still remained as completely fitted as ever to
execute the fatal purpose for which they had been designed.

The ultimate destiny of the dragon of brass was the destiny of the
religion whose bloodiest superstitions it embodied: it fell beneath
the resistless advance of Christianity. Shortly after the date of our
narrative, the interior of the building beneath which it was placed
having suffered from an accident, which will be related farther on, the
exterior was dismantled, in order that its pillars might furnish
materials for a church. The vault in the wall was explored by a monk
who had been present at the destruction of other Pagan temples, and who
volunteered to discover its contents. With a torch in one hand, and an
iron bar in the other, he descended into the cavity, sounding the walls
and the steps before him as h