Never shall I forget that look of awe and horror upon their white faces when at last they stood there in a huddled group before, almost under, the great dragon. Rhodes had seated himself beside me, and it was obvious that this temerity on our part was a source of astonishment to the Dromans. What dread powers they feared the monster might possess, I can only conjecture; but I do know that we could never have induced even Drorathusa herself to thus, on the very steps of his altar, hazard the wrath of an offended deity. Chapter 28 I ABANDON HOPE At last Milton and I arose and proceeded to examine carefully this chamber of carven horrors. By the altar, another passage was discovered. Like the great chamber itself and the passage by which we had entered, this tunnel had been hewn out of the living rock by the hand of man. It was some sixty feet in length and conducted us into a small but most remarkable grotto, or rather a series of grottoes. We advanced, however, but a little way there; a few minutes, and we were again in the hall of the dragon. We continued, and finished, our examination of the place. Another passage was discovered, in the roof and leading, of course, to we knew not where. Then there were those stone horrors ranged along either wall; but I shall not attempt to describe those nightmare-monstrosities, some of which, by the way, had two heads.[10] [Footnote 10: "The Chevalier d'Angos, a learned astronomer, carefully observed, for several days, a lizard with two heads, and assured himself that this lizard had two wills independent of each other, and possessing nearly equal power over the body, which was in one. When a piece of bread was presented to the animal, in such a manner that it could see it with one head only, that head wished to go towards the bread, while the other head wished the body to remain still."--Voltaire.] The Dromans had drawn back some distance from the altar, and all had sunk down to a seat upon the floor, all save Drorathusa. Our examination ended, we moved toward the little group. Milton looked at his watch. "Midnight," he said. As we drew near, Drorathusa suddenly raised a hand and made a significant motion toward the entrance. Those seated rose from the floor with an alacrity that astonished me. Evidently they were very anxious to quit this chamber of horrors. Well, I confess that I was not sorry to do so myself. "Shades of the great Ulysses," said I as we moved along in the rear, "are we going to keep up this wandering until we drop?" "Just what I was wondering myself, Bill. I fancy, though, that our Dromans are beginning to think that a rest would not be inexpedient." Inexpedient! Shortly after issuing from the passage, the party came to a halt, and Drorathusa, to my profound thankfulness, announced that the time for rest and sleep had come. "Sleep?" said I to myself. "Who can sleep in such a place and at such a time?"