Behind him slammed the principal door as noisily as a ringing bronze gate.
The phantom guide had paused on the threshold of a round hall hung with black and illumined with greenish hues of three lamps.
"Open your eyes," said the ghastly guide.
"I see," replied the other, stopping ten paces from him.
Drawing a double-edged sword from his shroud with a swift and haughty gesture, the phantom smote with it a brazen column which boomed a note like a gong.
Immediately, all around, the slabs of the hall floor rose up, and countless ghosts like the guide, stole in with drawn swords and took posts on steps where they stood like statues on their pedestals, cold and motionless. They stood out against the sable drapery.
Higher than the steps was a dais for seven chairs; on these six ghosts took place, leaving one seat vacant; they were chiefs.
"What is our number, brothers?" challenged one of the six rising in the middle.
"Three hundred is the right tally," answered the spectres, with one voice thundering through the hall and dying amid the black hangings.