The water rose in the cellar, above the barrels, the powder-barrels--'Barrels! ...Barrels! Any barrels to sell?'--and we went down to it with parched throats. It rose to our chins, to our mouths. And we drank. We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank. And we went up the stairs again in the dark, step by step, went up with the water.
The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of the room. If, this went on, the whole house on the lake would be swamped. The, floor of the torture-chamber had itself become a regular little lake, in which our feet splashed. Surely there was water enough now! Erik must turn off the tap!
'Erik! Erik! That is water enough for the gunpowder! Turn off the tap! Turn off the scorpion!'
But Erik did not reply. We heard nothing but the water rising: it was half-way to our waists!
'Christine!' cried M. de Chagny. 'Christine! The water is up to our knees!'
But Christine did not reply....We heard nothing but the water rising.
No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turn the scorpion!
We were all alone, in the dark, with the dark water that seized us and clasped us and froze us!
'Erik! Erik!'
'Christine! Christine!'
By this time, we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in the water, carried away by an irresistible whirl, for the water turned with us and dashed us against the dark mirror, which thrust us back again; and our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud.
Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seen that. Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had never shown me that, through the little invisible window.
'Erik! Erik!' I cried. 'I saved your life! Remember!...You were sentenced to death! But for me, you would be dead now!... Erik!'
We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage. But, suddenly, my straying hands seized the trunk of the iron tree! I called M. de Chagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree.
And the water rose still higher.
'Oh! Oh! Can you remember? How much space is there between the branch of the tree and the dome-shaped ceiling? Do try to remember!... After all, the water may stop, it must find its level!...There, I think it is stopping!...No, no, oh, horrible!...Swim! Swim for your life!'
Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; we fought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear escaping through some vent-hole or other.
'Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then glue our mouths to it!'
But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls! Oh, how those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers!...We whirled round again!...We began to sink! ...One last effort!...A last cry: 'Erik!...Christine!...'
'Guggle, guggle, guggle!' in our ears. 'Guggle! Guggle!' At the bottom of the dark water, our ears went, 'Guggle! Guggle!'
And, before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear, between two guggles:
'Barrels! Barrels! Any barrels to sell?'
Chapter XXVI The End of the Ghost's Love Story
The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative which the Persian left behind him.
Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely to abandon them to their deaths, M. de Chagny and his companion were saved by the sublime devotion of Christine Daae. And I had the rest of the story from the lips of the daroga himself.
When I went to see him, he was still living in his little flat in the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries. He was very ill, and it required all my ardor as an historian pledged to the truth to persuade him to live the incredible tragedy over again for my benefit. His faithful old servant Darius showed me in to him. The daroga received me at a window overlooking the garden of the Tuileries. He still had his magnificent eyes, but his poor face looked very worn. He had shaved the whole of his head, which was usually covered with an astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a long, plain coat and amused himself by unconsciously twisting his thumbs inside the sleeves; but his mind was quite clear, and he told me his story with perfect lucidity.
It seems that, when he opened his eyes, the daroga found himself lying on a bed. M. de Chagny was on a sofa, beside the wardrobe. An angel and a devil were watching over them.
After the deceptions and illusions of the torture-chamber, the precision of the details of that quiet little middle-class room seemed to have been invented for the express purpose of puzzling the mind of the mortal rash enough to stray into that abode of living nightmare. The wooden bedstead, the waxed mahogany chairs, the chest of drawers, those brasses, the little square antimacassars carefully placed on the backs of the chairs, the clock on the mantelpiece and the harmless-looking ebony caskets at either end, lastly, the whatnot filled with shells, with red pin-cushions, with mother-of-pearl boats and an enormous ostrich-egg, the whole discreetly lighted by a shaded lamp standing on a small round table: this collection of ugly, peaceable, reasonable furniture, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OPERA CELLARS, bewildered the imagination more than all the late fantastic happenings.
And the figure of the masked man seemed all the more formidable in this old-fashioned, neat and trim little frame. It bent down over the Persian and said, in his ear:
'Are you better, daroga?...You are looking at my furniture?... It is all that I have left of my poor unhappy mother.'
Christine Daae did not say a word: she moved about noiselessly, like a sister of charity, who had taken a vow of silence. She brought a cup of cordial, or of hot tea, he did not remember which. The man in the mask took it from her hands and gave it to the Persian. M. de Chagny was still sleeping.
Erik poured a drop of rum into the daroga's cup and, pointing to the viscount, said:
'He came to himself long before we knew if you were still alive, daroga. He is quite well. He is asleep. We must not wake him.'
Erik left the room for a moment, and the Persian raised himself on his elbow, looked around him and saw Christine Daae sitting by the fireside. He spoke to her, called her, but he was still very weak and fell back on his pillow. Christine came to him, laid her hand on his forehead and went away again. And the Persian remembered that, as she went, she did not give a glance at M. de Chagny, who, it is true, was sleeping peacefully; and she sat down again in her chair by the chimney-corner, silent as a sister of charity who had taken a vow of silence.
Erik returned with some little bottles which he placed on the mantelpiece. And, again in a whisper, so as not to wake M. de Chagny, he said to the Persian, after sitting down and feeling his pulse:
'You are now saved, both of you. And soon I shall take you up to the surface of the earth, TO PLEASE MY WIFE.'
Thereupon he rose, without any further explanation, and disappeared once more.
The Persian now looked at Christine's quiet profile under the lamp. She was reading a tiny book, with gilt edges, like a religious book. There are editions of THE IMITATION that look like that. The Persian still had in his ears the natural tone in which the other had said, 'to please my wife.' Very gently, he called her again; but Christine was wrapped up in her book and did not hear him.
Erik returned, mixed the daroga a draft and advised him not to speak to 'his wife' again nor to any one, BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE VERY DANGEROUS TO EVERYBODY'S HEALTH.
Eventually, the Persian fell asleep, like M. de Chagny, and did not wake until he was in his own room, nursed by his faithful Darius, who told him that, on the night before, he was found propped against the door of his flat, where he had been brought by a stranger, who rang the bell before going away.
As soon as the daroga recovered his strength and his wits, he sent to Count Philippe's house to inquire after the viscount's health. The answer was that the young man had not been seen and that Count Philippe was dead. His body was found on the bank of the Opera lake, on the Rue-Scribe side. The Persian remembered the requiem mass which he had heard from behind the wall of the torture-chamber, and had no doubt concerning the crime and the criminal. Knowing Erik as he did, he easily reconstructed the tragedy. Thinking that his brother had run away with Christine Daae, Philippe had dashed in pursuit of him along the Brussels Road, where he knew that everything was prepared for the elopement. Failing to find the pair, he hurried back to the Opera, remembered Raoul's strange confidence about his fantastic rival and learned that the viscount had made every effort to enter the cellars of the
