The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux (top 10 ebook reader TXT) 📖

has not touched the grasshopper”⁠—with that composure!⁠—“but it is not too late to do the right thing. There, I open the caskets without a key, for I am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please. I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dears inside. Aren’t they pretty? If you turn the grasshopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up. There is enough gunpowder under our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris. If you turn the scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned. Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer’s⁠ ⁠… you shall make them a present of their lives.⁠ ⁠… For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the scorpion.⁠ ⁠… And merrily, merrily, we will be married!”

A pause; and then:

“If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I shall turn the grasshopper⁠ ⁠… and the grasshopper, I tell you, hops jolly high!”

The terrible silence began anew. The Vicomte de Chagny, realizing that there was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees and prayed. As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that I had to take my heart in both hands, lest it should burst. At last, we heard Erik’s voice:

“The two minutes are past.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye, mademoiselle.⁠ ⁠… Hop, grasshopper!⁠ ⁠…”

“Erik,” cried Christine, “do you swear to me, monster, do you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, to hop at our wedding.”

“Ah, you see! You said, to hop!”

“At our wedding, ingenuous child!⁠ ⁠… The scorpion opens the ball.⁠ ⁠… But that will do!⁠ ⁠… You won’t have the scorpion? Then I turn the grasshopper!”

“Erik!”

“Enough!”

I was crying out in concert with Christine. M. de Chagny was still on his knees, praying.

“Erik! I have turned the scorpion!”

Oh, the second through which we passed!

Waiting! Waiting to find ourselves in fragments, amid the roar and the ruins!

Feeling something crack beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hiss through the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket!

It came softly, at first, then louder, then very loud. But it was not the hiss of fire. It was more like the hiss of water. And now it became a gurgling sound: “Guggle! Guggle!”

We rushed to the trap-door. All our thirst, which vanished when the terror came, now returned with the lapping of the water.

The water rose in the cellar, above the barrels, the powder-barrels⁠—“Barrels!⁠ ⁠… Barrels!⁠ ⁠… Any barrels to sell?”⁠—and we went down to it with parched throats. It rose to our chins, to our mouths. And we drank. We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank. And we went up the stairs again in the dark, step by step, went up with the water.

The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of the room. If this went on, the whole house on the lake would be swamped. The floor of the torture-chamber had itself become a regular little lake, in which our feet splashed. Surely there was water enough now! Erik must turn off the tap!

“Erik! Erik! That is water enough for the gunpowder! Turn off the tap! Turn off the scorpion!”

But Erik did not reply. We heard nothing but the water rising: it was halfway to our waists!

“Christine!” cried M. de Chagny. “Christine! The water is up to our knees!”

But Christine did not reply.⁠ ⁠… We heard nothing but the water rising.

No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turn the scorpion!

We were all alone, in the dark, with the dark water that seized us and clasped us and froze us!

“Erik! Erik!”

“Christine! Christine!”

By this time, we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in the water, carried away by an irresistible whirl, for the water turned with us and dashed us against the dark mirror, which thrust us back again; and our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud.

Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seen that. Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had never shown me that, through the little invisible window.

“Erik! Erik!” I cried. “I saved your life! Remember!⁠ ⁠… You were sentenced to death! But for me, you would be dead now!⁠ ⁠… Erik!”

We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage. But, suddenly, my straying hands seized the trunk of the iron tree! I called M. de Chagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree.

And the water rose still higher.

“Oh! Oh! Can you remember? How much space is there between the branch of the tree and the dome-shaped ceiling? Do try to remember!⁠ ⁠… After all, the water may stop, it must find its level!⁠ ⁠… There, I think it is stopping!⁠ ⁠… No, no, oh, horrible!⁠ ⁠… Swim! Swim for your life!”

Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; we fought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear escaping through some vent-hole or other.

“Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then glue our mouths to it!”

But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls! Oh, how those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers!⁠ ⁠… We whirled round again!⁠ ⁠… We began to sink!⁠ ⁠… One last effort!⁠ ⁠… A last cry:

“Erik!⁠ ⁠… Christine!⁠ ⁠…”

“Guggle, guggle, guggle!” in our ears. “Guggle! Guggle!” At the bottom of the dark water, our ears went, “Guggle! Guggle!”

And, before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear, between two guggles:

“Barrels! Barrels! Any barrels to sell?”

XXVI The End of the Ghost’s Love Story

The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative which the Persian left behind him.

Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely to abandon them to their deaths, M. de Chagny and