The door opened, and as soon closed behind the two initiates. For a moment they were blinded by the brilliance which flooded the subterraneous chamber to which they had now penetrated. It was lighted by seventy candelabra, each bearing seven candles--again the mystic number. The walls were covered with red drapery; at the further end a raised platform formed a dais with closed curtains; on the front of the dais was the picture of a carpenter's level. Several steps from the platform, on a draped table, were thrown in confusion a royal crown, a scepter, a pontifical tiara, a bishop's crosier, several collars of chivalric orders, and a few ducal or princely coronets; besides these there lay in the heap some pouches, half open, and full of gold and silver pieces. Directly behind the table on which thus lay cluttered the emblems of religion, royalty, aristocracy and wealth, stood seven masked men, garbed in long robes, silent and erect, their arms crossed on their chests, seven specters, seven fantastic apparitions. The one whose duty it was to officiate at the reception of initiates stood in the center. Three Voyants were ranged to his right, three to his left. He addressed Victoria, who keenly felt the impression produced on her by the strange spectacle: "Woman, your age?" "Fifteen centuries, and more. I was born the first day of the enslavement and misery of my brothers." "What would you?" "The end of oppression. I wish to beat down thrones and altars, privileges of birth and of fortune, all the hoary monuments of ignorance, of slavery, and of iniquity, all the monopolies, all the privileges which flourish upon the people." "What will happen when the level shall have passed over the old world, and when the exploiters of the people shall have disappeared?" "The darkness of ages shall be superseded by the revivifying warmth and the fruitful light of the sun; harvests of abundance will cover with their sheaves the soil tilled by a fecund revolution." "Is your severance from the old world complete?" "I have broken with the old world, and rallied to the new." "Behold this pontifical tiara, this kingly crown; gaze on these symbols of nobility, these sacks of gold and silver. You may demand of kings, of priests, of nobles, of the rich, the enjoyments of life, all by devoting yourself body and soul to these idols and to tyranny." "It is my wish to overthrow those idols. I vow an implacable hatred to the enemies of the people."