He entered, but the door turned immediately upon its hinges.
"My Lord Basil—" shrieked Hormazd, "the door is shut—"
"I stumbled against it."
"Bring a light—open the door—" came a muffled voice from within.
"I shall soon return."
"Do not forget the light."
"Light!—Ay! You shall not want for light,—if what I say be not false: Et lux perpetua luceat eis," chanted the Grand Chamberlain in Requiem measure, as he strode away.
Silence, deep and sepulchral, succeeded. Tristan cowered on the floor, his face covered with his hands. If what he had overheard was true, he, too, was lost. What had happened? Who was the Grand Chamberlain's companion?
Now Hormazd began to scream and rave in the darkness. Terrible execrations broke from the Oriental's lips, as he hurled his body against the iron bars of his prison cell. Demoniacal yells waked the silent echoes. The other prisoners, alarmed and rendered restless, soon joined in, and soon the dark vaults of the Emperor's Tomb resounded with a veritable pandemonium, a chorus of the damned that caused Tristan to put his fingers to his ears lest he, too, go mad.
At nine o'clock that night the last visit was to be paid the prisoners. At nine o'clock Maraglia, the Castellan, came, attended by the guard, which waited outside. The Castellan was in a state of nervous excitement. As he entered Tristan's cell he looked about, as if he dreaded a listener, then he approached his prisoner and whispered something into his ear.