he great
gates swung back upon their hinges. We passed them--with what sensations
I cannot describe--and groped our way down a short corridor which ended
in tall, iron-covered doors. These also rolled open at our approach, and
next instant we staggered back amazed and half-blinded by the intense
blaze of light within.

Imagine, you who read, the nave of the vastest cathedral with which you
are acquainted. Then double or treble its size, and you will have some
conception of that temple in which we found ourselves. Perhaps in the
beginning it had been a cave, who can say? but now its sheer walls, its
multitudinous columns springing to the arched roof far above us, had all
been worked on and fashioned by the labour of men long dead; doubtless
the old fire-worshippers of thousands of years ago.

You will wonder how so great a place was lighted, but I think that never
would you guess. Thus--by twisted columns of living flame! I counted
eighteen of them, but there may have been others. They sprang from the
floor at regular intervals along the lines of what in a cathedral would
be the aisles. Right to the roof they sprang, of even height and girth,
so fierce was the force of the natural gas that drove them, and there
were lost, I suppose, through chimneys bored in the thickness of the
rock. Nor did they give off smell or smoke, or in that great, cold
place, any heat which could be noticed, only an intense white light like
that of molten iron, and a sharp hissing noise as of a million angry
snakes.

The huge temple was utterly deserted, and, save for this sybilant,
pervading sound, utterly silent; an awesome, an overpowering place.

"Do these candles of yours ever go out?" asked Leo of Oros, placing his
hand before his dazzled eyes.

"How can they," replied the priest, in his smooth, matter-of-fact voice,
"seeing that they rise from the eternal fire which the builders of this
hall worshipped? Thus they have burned from the beginning, and thus
they will burn for ever, though, if we wish it, we can shut off their
light.[*] Be pleased to follow me: you will see greater things."

[*] This, as I ascertained afterwards, was done by thrusting
a broad stone of great thickness over the apertures through
which the gas or fire rushed and thus cutting off the air.
These stones were worked to and fro by means of pulleys
connected with iron rods.--L. H. H.

So in awed silence we followed, and, oh! how small a