Growing impatient at the long absence of Adolphe, after a while he rose to draw apart the curtains through which his friend had disappeared. As he was about to pass through them, his head struck against two feet hanging in the air which rattled with the noise of dry bones. He looked up: it was a skeleton. He gazed at it with a sincere and gentle compassion. "You would be much more at your ease in Saint-Chaumont Cemetery," he said and went on with a sad smile. The corridor down which he walked had no windows. It was lighted from one end to the other by a crimson glow. At first Theophrastus could not make out where it came from. Then he perceived that he was walking on it. It came from the cellars, through the thick sheets of glass with which the corridor was paved. What were those crimson flames below, in whose glow he walked, doing? He did not know. He did not even ask. He did not even ask why he, Theophrastus, found himself walking in this glow. He had ceased to ask, "Why am I in this house in Huchette Street?" He had ceased to ask because nobody answered. _Emmanuel, Noun, Samech, Hain... Sabaoth... Adonai..._ Still names on the stone walls. The only ornament on these walls about which names crawled was, at the height of a man, an endless line of stars formed by the two triangles of Solomon's Seal. Between each star or seal, in green letters, was the word NIRVANA. The corridor did not run in a straight line. It had curves and angles. Presently he came to a spot at which two other corridors ran into it at right angles, and prudently stopped. But soon he grew impatient again, and plunged down one of these side corridors. Three minutes later, without knowing how it came about, he found himself back at the spot where the corridors crossed. Then he went back down the first corridor, retracing his steps to the hall. But he did not find the hall. He was on the point of howling with distress, when Adolphe appeared before him. His eyes were red as if he had been weeping. "Where am I?" cried Theophrastus tempestuously. "You are in the house of the Mage--in the house of M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox!" CHAPTER XIII THE CURE THAT MISSED