which fronted a row of closed
doors. The place was very damp and chill; a cold draught of air blew
through the length of it, and Sandy, as the other closed the door
through which they had just entered, and so shut out the noise beyond,
heard distinctly the sound of running water. Without turning to the left
or to the right, Sandy's guide led the way down the hall, stopping at
last when he had reached a door near the further end. He drew a bunch of
keys from his pocket, chose one from among them, fitted it into the
lock, and turned it.

"Go in there," said he, "and wash yourself clean, and then you shall
have clothes to wear."

Sandy entered, and the door was closed behind him. The place in which he
found himself was very cold, and the floor beneath his feet was wet and
slimy. His teeth chattered and his limbs shuddered as he stood looking
around him. The noise of flowing water sounded loud and clear through
the silence; it was running from a leaden pipe into a wooden tank,
mildewed and green with mould, that stood in the middle of the room. The
stone-walls around, once painted white, were now also stained and
splotched with great blotches of green and russet dampness. The only
light that lit the place came in through a small, narrow, slatted window
close to the ceiling, and opposite the doorway which he had entered. It
was all gloomy, ugly, repellent.

There were some letters painted in red at the head of the wooden tank.
He came forward and read them, not without some difficulty, for they
were nearly erased.

_This is the water of death!_

Sandy started back so suddenly that he nearly fell upon the slippery
floor. A keen pang of sudden terror shot through him; then a thought
that some grotesque mockery was being played upon him. A second thought
blew the first away like a breath of smoke, for it told him that there
could be no mockery in the place to which he had come. His waking and
all that had happened to him had much of nightmare grotesquery about it,
but there was no grotesquery or no appearance of jesting about that man
who had guided him to the place in which he now found himself. There was
a calm, impassive, unemotional sternness about all that he said and
did--official, automatonlike--that precluded the possibility of any jest
or meaningless form. This must indeed be the _water of death_, and his
soul told him that it was meant for him.

He turned dully, and walked with stumbling steps to the door. He