"'I am going to write up some of my notes, and may then join you,' I answered evasively. Already it wanted but an hour to the time I had promised Volinè to meet her, so long had we lingered at table.
"With ever increasing excitement, with nerves becoming strung unto their tightest tension, I passed that hour away, and then betook myself to the arbour where Volinè was to join me. There, to my great astonishment, I found one of her maids—Irolne, sister of Cyni—awaiting my coming with a message from her mistress, saying that I was to go with this maiden, who would conduct me to a distant part of the Palace grounds, where Volinè already waited. Along secluded paths, and twice for some considerable way underground, through wild and wondrous grottoes we went, until at last we came unto steps which seemed to lead into a large and lofty building, entirely underground. At the bottom of this stairway stood Volinè, with Cyni. We were in a round chamber, from which radiated in all directions large pipes or tunnels, similar to the one through which we were brought by Perodii captives to Edos. In the centre was a luxuriously-fitted car, by the side of which stood two marshals in royal uniform.
"Smiling sweetly to me, Volinè stepped forward and said to these attendants:
"'We would visit Echri's Temple on the hill Verosi. Place us thither with speed,' and, beckoning to me, she entered the brilliantly-lighted car, and I followed her and sat down by her side. Then the car was turned round perhaps a quarter of a circle, and began to move forward into one of the pipes, and in an instant we were gliding onwards with ever-increasing speed. My arm stole round Volinè's waist as we travelled on, and, kissing her, I said:
"'You see, dear one, I am still as anxious to go through this ordeal of fire as I was when I left you last night.'
"'I knew thou wouldst not fail, dear Harry; but already my heart falters within me. Even now there is time for thee to repent thy words.'
"'And lose you? Never, darling! I see happiness before me, happiness with you; and though the path that leads thereto is rough and terrible, the reward will all the sweeter be.'
"We had no time for much further converse, as in a few minutes of time we slowed, and at last came to a stop in another building, similar in all respects to the one we had left.
"Instantly four venerable, white-haired Priests approached, and with some invocation which I did not understand, assisted us to alight, and, in a tone of great respect, asked us to follow them. We walked up a sloping path in silence, and then found ourselves in a beautiful grove of trees, from which, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, towered the three mighty domes of burnished metal we had seen from the air, when approaching Edos in the Sirius.
"Escorted by our priestly guides, we wended our way between the trees, until we reached the lofty arched entrance to the Temple. Passing under this we came into a kind of courtyard, after crossing which we went through another and a smaller way, and here Holy Echri stood waiting to receive us. He was dressed much more imposingly, in a crimson robe, with a long rod of what looked like fine gold in his left hand, and a scroll of parchments, bound and suspended by a curiously-wrought chain of the same metal, in his right.