the
hall that opened before me, and they ran together rapidly and joined in
liquid lines and then faded as suddenly as they had come--but not too
soon for me to read the simple legend they had written in the air--an
invitation to me, so I interpreted it, to go forward again, to enter
the building, and to see for myself why I had been enticed there.

Without hesitation I obeyed. I walked through the doorway, and I became
conscious that the door had closed behind me as I pressed forward. The
passage was narrow and but faintly lighted; it bent to the right with a
circular sweep as though it skirted the inner circumference of the
building; still curving, it sank by a gentle gradient; and then it rose
again and turned almost at right angles. Pushing ahead resolutely,
although in not a little doubt as to the meaning of my adventure, I
thrust aside a heavy curtain, soft to the hand. Then I found myself
just inside a large circular hall. Letting the hangings fall behind me,
I took three or four irresolute paces which brought me almost to the
centre of the room. I saw that the walls were continuously draped with
the heavy folds of the same soft velvet, so that I could not even guess
where it was I had entered. The rotunda was bare of all furniture;
there was no table in it, no chair, no sofa; nor was anything hanging
from the ceiling or against the curtained walls. All that the room
contained was a set of four curiously shaped narrow stands, placed over
against one another at the corners of what might be a square drawn
within the circle of the hall. These narrow stands were close to the
curtains; they were perhaps a foot wide, each of them, or it might be a
little more: they were twice or three times as long as they were wide;
and they reached a height of possibly three or four feet.

Going towards one of these stands to examine it more curiously, I
discovered that there were two projections from the top, resembling
eye-pieces, as though inviting the beholder to gaze into the inside of
the stand. Then I thought I heard a faint metallic click above my head.
Raising my eyes swiftly, I read a few words written, as it were,
against the dark velvet of the heavy curtains in dots of flame that
flowed one into the other and melted away in a moment. When this
mysterious legend had faded absolutely, I could not recall the words I
had read in the fitful and flitting letters of fire, and yet I retained
the meaning of the message; and I un