“I think I understand you,” I observed. “But I do not yet understand the treatment.”
“Think about it. Here is his cell.”
The door was open and we looked in. It was no different from all the rest—bare walls and floor and the rude altar—but the light was absent. Just at that moment a yell of scarce-restrained delight was heard, and looking up the corridor we saw the man returning, accompanied on either side by devils, leaping, skipping and gesticulating.
He was subjected to great indignities by them, and they appeared the more enraged because he took no particular notice of them. He came to the cell as if guided there by something, since he himself seemed dazed and hopeless. He stumbled in and fell toward the altar, resting his arms against it, for indeed, by a terrible truth they did not understand, it was the only resting-place for any of them.
After the first few minutes spent there he got up and clenched his hands.
“It can’t be true,” he muttered. “There’s no sense in it.”
Vestasian laughed.
“Come away,” he urged me. “He’s perfectly right. There is no sense in it.”
From there he led the way up a staircase. It was plain and ordinarily built in stone, drearily cold and comfortless.
“I will not detain you very long,” he said, “for to-morrow I understand Plucritus takes you to the city, and you will need some rest and preparation.”