softly shutting door
from the latter direction decided him. The place looked as when he
left it a half-hour before. Gnulemah's curtain had not been moved. The
other door was closed; he ran up the steps between the granite
sphinxes, and found it locked. Butting his shoulder against the panel
with impatient force, the hinges broke from their rotten fastenings,
and the door gave inwards. Balder stepped past it, and found himself
in the sombre lamp-lit interior of the temple.

He could discern but little; the place seemed vast; the corners were
veiled in profound shadow. At the farther end a huge lamp was
suspended, by a chain from the roof, over a triangular altar of black
marble. The architecture of the room was strange and massive as of
Egyptian temples. Strong, dark colors met the eye on all sides; in the
panels of the walls and distant ceiling fantastic devices showed
obscurely forth. Nine mighty columns, of design like those in the
doorway, were ranged along the walls, their capitals buried in the
upward gloom.

Becoming used to the dusk, Balder now marked an array of colossal
upright forms, alternating between the pillars. Their rough
resemblance to human figures drew him towards one of them: it was an
Egyptian sarcophagus covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and
probably holding an immemorial mass of spiced flesh and rags. These
silent relics of a prehistoric past seemed to be the only company
present. In view of his uncle's well-known tastes, the nephew was not
unprepared to meet these gentry.

But he was come to seek the living, not the dead. The figure that he
had seen outside must be within these four walls, there being no other
visible outlet besides the door through which Balder had entered. Was
old Hiero Glyphic lurking in one of these darksome corners, or behind
some thick-set column? The young man looked about him as sharply as he
could, but nothing moved except the shadows thrown by the lamp, which
was vibrating pendulum-like on its long chain.

He approached this lamp, his steps echoing on the floor of polished
granite. What had set the thing swinging? It had a leisurely
elliptical motion, as from a moderate push sideways. The lamp was
wrought in bronze, antique of fashion and ornament. It had capacity
for gallons of oil, and would burn for weeks without refilling. The
altar beneath was a plain black marble prism, highly polished, resting
upon a round base of alabaster. A handful of ashes crowned