The Church, composed of temples, synagogues, and priests, jumbled together in luxurious profusion, was dressed and bedecked so finely that the God the people worshipped fell almost out of sight. In their chief temple, in the greatest city, was a three-tailed golden Serpent, coiled around a golden pole above a table decked in red, and set with incense vessels. Dim and mysterious was that holy place, where priests, all flowing and bedecked in golden garments, came each day to bow before the Snake. Its three tails, the gold of them burnished like fire, spread out like fans on high, against a background of mosaic. Below, resting on the altar, was the great head, lying quite still; the genius of ages worked in its cruel fangs and awful eyes. Eyes never closing, jewel-glinting, green and fiery, all-surveying, all-watching. Those terrible eyes lit up the gloom, and compelled men to stand upon their heads as it itself was forced to do. For by the grim and dreadful fascination of those never-closing eyes, unconsciously the worshippers changed to position like to it, tails up, heads down, blinded by their religion. In this temple the people sat in the big gloomy aisles, each on a little chair with a ledge in front for kneeling, and heard the priest from the pulpit, and the reader from his desk. Awed by the grandeur and the solemn dimness, they bowed and salaamed before the triune tails, hidden from the vulgar gaze by a red silk curtain blazoned in gold. And when the mighty organ rolled and rumbled, and the angel voices of the choir boys rang through the gold-washed rafters, their senses were stirred by some far hidden mystery, and their eyes would dim or kindle as they felt it; only the gleaming eyes within the veil remained unchanged. Now it was customary for the priests who waited on the Serpent to fast a day each month and marry only once. A layman in Lucifram might wed twice. No priests could marry under forty. For laymen, the age was twenty-five for the first attempt, and forty for the second; that is, for the few who preferred company in their latter years to peace. But though the women, by Act of Parliament, enjoyed the privilege of marrying twice, just as the men did, there were certain things clearly beyond them, they being in Lucifram, as here, the weaker vessels. On those great days whereon the priest drew back the silken curtain and displayed the Serpent, all women were debarred from entering the temple. And so enough for an explanation and a prologue. Take my hand, descend, and tread on Lucifram! CHAPTER II FRIEND AND EXECUTOR