then it seemed to them that a big cord, wet, cold, and viscous, was
gliding between their legs. Through some fissures cut in the wall there
fell thin white rays, and they advanced by this uncertain light. At last
they distinguished a large black serpent. It darted quickly away and
disappeared.

"Let us fly!" exclaimed Matho. "It is she! I feel her; she is coming."

"No, no," replied Spendius, "the temple is empty."

Then a dazzling light made them lower their eyes. Next they perceived
all around them an infinite number of beasts, lean, panting, with
bristling claws, and mingled together one above another in a mysterious
and terrifying confusion. There were serpents with feet, and bulls
with wings, fishes with human heads were devouring fruit, flowers were
blooming in the jaws of crocodiles, and elephants with uplifted trunks
were sailing proudly through the azure like eagles. Their incomplete or
multiplied limbs were distended with terrible exertion. As they thrust
out their tongues they looked as though they would fain give forth
their souls; and every shape was to be found among them as if the
germ-receptacle had been suddenly hatched and had burst, emptying itself
upon the walls of the hall.

Round the latter were twelve globes of blue crystal, supported by
monsters resembling tigers. Their eyeballs were starting out of their
heads like those of snails, with their dumpy loins bent they were
turning round towards the background where the supreme Rabbet, the
Omnifecund, the last invented, shone splendid in a chariot of ivory.

She was covered with scales, feathers, flowers, and birds as high as the