"To the doors! To the doors! Let the Christians go forth! Let the
impious go forth!"
Then twenty-four lads, entirely naked, each holding a silver sistrum,
like a crescent-moon, came forth from the shadow. In perfect unison
they raised the vibrating instruments above their heads, and with one
graceful gesture struck the resonant strings, which gave forth a long
and plaintive note. Maximus made a sign.
Someone tightly bandaged Julian's eyes from behind and said to him
earnestly--
"Go forward! Fear neither Water, Fire, Spirits; nor Bodies, nor Life,
nor Death."
He felt himself dragged forward; an iron door opened on creaking
hinges. He was pushed through it; a stifling atmosphere beat on his
face while his feet groped down slippery and twisted steps. Feeling
his way down this endless stair, amidst sepulchral silence, it seemed
at last that he must be a great distance underground. He proceeded
along a narrow passage--so narrow that his hands, held stiffly to his
sides, rubbed along the walls. Suddenly his bare feet struck moisture;
he heard water flowing; a stream covered his ankles. He kept on, but
at every step the water rose, reaching first his calves, then his
knees, and finally his loins. His teeth began to chatter with cold.
The flood rose breast high. He wondered--
"Perhaps this is a trap; it is some device of Maximus for killing me,
to do the Emperor pleasure."
But he held stoutly on, forging slowly through the water. Finally it
seemed to lessen, till at last it completely ebbed away. A suffocating
heat, as from the mouth of a furnace, gradually enveloped him, so that
the ground scorched his feet. Julian thought he must be walking
straight into an oven; blood throbbed in his temples; sometimes the
heat was so intense that it licked his cheek like a flame. But the
lad never wavered.
In its turn the heat diminished. But sickening odours next choked his
breath. Time after time he stumbled against round objects, and
recognised bones and dead men's skulls.
Suddenly he felt someone walking by his side, gliding along
noiselessly like a shadow; an ice-cold hand seized his own. He uttered
an involuntary cry. Two hands were gently pulling at his clothes, the
fleshless bones piercing their withered skin. The grip of these hands
became playful movements, repulsive caresses like those of debauched
women. Julian felt a breath on his cheek tainted with fusty rottenness
and moisture, and then became aware of a rapid murmur at his ear, like
the rustle of leaves on a night in autumn--
"It is I! It is I!--I!--do you not know me again? It is I!--I!"
"And who, who art thou?" stammered Julian. But immediately he
recollected his promise of absolute silence.
"It is I! Shall I strip the bandage from your eyes so that you may
know me again, may meet me again?" And the bony fingers, with the same
hideous eagerness, fluttered over his face as if seeking to drag off
the bandage.
A deadly chill penetrated Julian to the heart, and, through habit, he
thrice crossed himself involuntarily, as in childhood at some bad
dream.
A clap of thunder! The ground heaved under his feet! He felt himself
falling into the unknown; and lost consciousness.
When he regained his senses he was no longer blindfold but lay on
cushions in a huge twilit grotto. A cloth, soaked in penetrating
perfumes, was being held to his nostrils. Opposite Julian stood a lean
man with a coppery skin; it was the gymnosophist--the naked
sage--assistant of Maximus.
He was holding high above his head a motionless metallic disc. A voice
said to Julian. "Look!" Julian gazed at the dazzling circle. Its
brilliancy was almost painful to the eyes. Looking at it fixedly and
long, gradually all things melted and lost their sharper outline. A
pleasant weakness breathed through his being. The luminous disc no
longer shone in the void, but in his own mind; his eyelids descended;
a sleepy smile of weariness played upon his submissive lips. He felt a
hand stroking his head, and a voice asked--
"Are you asleep?"
"Yes...."
"Look me in the eyes!"
Julian obeyed with effort and perceived Maximus stooping over him.
He was a man of about seventy years old, bearded to the girdle. Thick
hair, with a yellow glitter in it, fell thick over his shoulders. Deep
wrinkles, furrowed by thought and will, and not by suffering, marked
cheek and brow. His smile was like the smile of women who are at once
witty, mendacious, and enchanting. But it was the eyes of Maximus that
gave Julian most pleasure. Under thick eyebrows they shone mocking,
and tender, yet piercing to the quick.