Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/258

246 These pretty dears were arranged in a semicircle, each on a stand of its own. The small ones were outside. They grew bigger as they went on, until, by the time you reached the biggest in the middle, if you were a drinking man you were ready to turn teetotaler at sight. The hues they were decked in were enough to make you envy the colour blind. Coming on this livening collection without the slightest notice, in that great black mystery of a place, with just light enough to let them hit you in the eye, and hidden in the darkness you knew not what besides, was a bit trying to the nerves. At least it was to mine. And I’m not generally accounted a nervous subject.

The strangest thing of all was in the centre. I stared at it, and stared; yet I couldn’t make out what it was.

It was on a throne; if it wasn’t gold it looked like it. It was large enough for half-a-dozen men. Standing high. Right in the middle, flanked by the biggest pair of monsters, the seat was on a level with the tops of their heads. It was approached by a flight of steps, each step apparently of different coloured stone. Coloured lamps were hung above and about it. One noticed how, in the draughty air, they were swinging to and fro. From these proceeded all the light that was in the place, except that here and there upon the steps were queer-shaped vessels, seemingly of copper, in which something burned, flashing up now and then in changing hues, like Bengal lights. From them, I judged, proceeded the sickly smell which made the whole place like a pest-house. And the smoke was horrid.

In the very centre of the throne was something, though what I could not make out. It seemed immobile; yet there was that about it which suggested life. The face and head were as hideous as any of the horrors round about, and yet—could the thing be