'Let him see the light!' exclaimed another in an opposite direction. The mandate was obeyed, and I was restored to sight.
I looked wildly and fearfully around—but no living object was perceptible. Before me stood an altar, hung about with red curtains, and ornamented with fringe of the same color. Above it, on a white Banner, was a painting of the human heart, with a dagger struck to the hilt, and the blood streaming from the wound. Directly under this horrible device, was written, in large letters,
THE PUNISHMENT OF THE UNFAITHFUL.
Around, wherever I turned my eyes, there was little else to be seen but skeletons of human bodies—with their arms uplifted, and stretching forward—suspended in every direction from the walls. One of them I involuntarily touched, and down it came with a fearful crash—its dry bones rattling upon the granite floor, until the whole cavern reverberated with the sound. I turned from this spectacle, and opposite beheld a guillotine—the fatal axe smeared with blood; and near it was a head—looking as if it had just been severed from the body—with the countenance ghastly—the lips parted—and the eyes staring wide open. There, also, was the body, covered, however, with a cloth, so that little was seen except the neck, mangled and bloody, and a small portion of the hand, hanging out from its shroud, grasping in its fingers a tablet with the following inscription:
THE END OF THE BETRAYER.
I sickened and fell. When I awoke to consciousness I found myself in the arms of O'Dougherty. He was bathing my temples with a fragrant liquor. When I had sufficiently recovered, he put his mouth close to my ear and whispered—'Where is your courage man? Do you know there is a score of eyes upon you?'
'Alas! I am unused to such scenes—I confess they have unmanned me. But now I am firm; you have only to command, and I will obey.'
'Bravo!' exclaimed O'Dougherty, 'you must now be introduced to the high priest of our order. He has taken his seat at the altar—prepared for your reception. I will retire that you may do him reverence—trusting soon to hail you as a brother.'
The curtains about the altar had been grouped up, and there, indeed, sat the high dignitary in all his splendor. He was closely masked, and reclined in a high-backed chair, with his head turned carelessly to one side, with an expression of the most singular good humor. At that moment, also, there issued from numerous recesses, which I had not hitherto observed, a number of grotesque-looking shapes, not unlike the weird sisters in Macbeth, who quietly took their stations around the apartment, and fixed upon me their fearful and startling gaze. Their garments were hanging in shreds—an emblem, perhaps, of their own desperate pursuits. Their faces were daubed with paint of various colors, which gave them a wild and fiendish aspect. Each one grasped a long knife, which he brandished furiously above his head, the blades sometimes striking heavily together. They then sprang simultaneously forward, forming themselves into a circle, while one stationed himself as the centre, around whom they slowly moved with dismal and half-suppressed groans. They continued this ceremony until some one exclaimed—