Then a dim light appeared, growing brighter as we advanced. Soon I saw that it came through an opening in the wall to our left, which we were approaching. Before the opening the guide halted, motioning us to enter.
We did so, and found ourselves in an apartment no less than royal.
Several blazing urns attached to the walls furnished the light, wavering but brilliant. There were tables and rude seats, fashioned from the same prismatic stones which covered the column in the lake, and from their surfaces a thousand points of color shone dazzlingly.
At one side was a long slab of granite covered with the skins of some animal, dry, thick, and soft. The walls themselves were of the hardest granite, studded to a height of four or five feet with tiny, innumerable spots of gold.
Harry crossed to the middle of the apartment and stood gazing curiously about him. I turned to the door and looked down the outer passage in both directions—our guide had disappeared.
"We appear to be friends of the family," said Harry with a grin.
"Thanks to Desiree, yes."
"Thanks to the devil! What did she mean—what could she mean? Was it one of her jokes? For I can't believe that she would—would—"
"Have sent us to death? Well—who knows? Yes, it may have been one of her jokes," I lied.
For, of course, Harry knew nothing of the cause of Desiree's desire for revenge on me, and it would have served no good purpose to tell him.