must have affrighted the guardian of the gate, for the robed fellow
stood away, and Priam passed within the grille, where were winding
steps, which he mounted. Up the steps ran coils of fire-hose. He heard
the click of the gate as the attendant shut it, and he was thankful for
an escape. The steps led to the organ-loft, perched on the top of the
massive screen. The organist was seated behind a half-drawn curtain,
under shaded electric lights, and on the ample platform whose parapet
overlooked the choir were two young men who whispered with the organist.
None of the three even glanced at Priam. Priam sat down on a windsor
chair fearfully, like an intruder, his face towards the choir.

The whispers ceased; the organist's fingers began to move over five rows
of notes, and over scores of stops, while his feet groped beneath, and
Priam heard music, afar off. And close behind him he heard rumblings,
steamy vibrations, and, as it were, sudden escapes of gas; and
comprehended that these were the hoarse responses of the 32 and 64 foot
pipes, laid horizontally along the roof of the screen, to the summoning
fingers of the organist. It was all uncanny, weird, supernatural,
demoniacal if you will--it was part of the secret and unsuspected
mechanism of a vast emotional pageant and spectacle. It unnerved Priam,
especially when the organist, a handsome youngish man with lustrous
eyes, half turned and winked at one of his companions.

The thrilling voices of the choristers grew louder, and as they grew
louder Priam Farll was conscious of unaccustomed phenomena in his
throat, which shut and opened of itself convulsively. To divert his
attention from his throat, he partially rose from the windsor chair, and
peeped over the parapet of the screen into the choir, whose depths were
candlelit and whose altitudes were capriciously bathed by the
intermittent splendours of the sun. High, high up, in front of him, at