“I will show thee the way,” said Death, passing before.
The Duke of Verity stopped, not daring to follow his companion. But what could he do? Where fly in that infinite desert? What direction take, in those interminable, icy plains?
“Tito, art thou not coming?” asked Death.
He cast one last and hopeless glance toward the pale sun, and entered the ice.
A winding stairway, carved in the same congealed material, conducted him by tortuous turns to a vast, square room, without furniture or ornaments; all of ice. It reminded one of the great salt mines of Polonia, or the marble rooms of the baths of Ispahan and Medina.
Death had muffled himself up and was sitting down in Oriental fashion in a corner.
“Come hither, sit at my side and we will talk,” said he to Tito.
The youth obeyed, mechanically.
So profound a silence reigned that one could have heard the breathing of a microscopical insect, if in that region there might exist anything which did not rely upon the protection of Death.