as she would have it. This peace reminded her of the profound silence of
nature before a tempest bursts and rages.

Gorgo took off her veil as she went up the stairs, shook out the folds of
her dress, and assumed the dignified and reverent demeanor which became a
young girl of rank and position when approaching the altars of the
divinity. But as she reached the top a loud medley of noises and voices
met her ear-flutes, drums?--The sacred dance, she supposed, must be going
on.

She came out into a room on one side of the hypostyle; her companion
opened a high door, plated with gilt bronze and silver, and Gorgo
followed him, walking gravely with her head held high and her eyes fixed
on the ground, into the magnificent hall where the sacred image sat
enthroned in veiled majesty. They crossed the colonnade at the side of
the hypostyle and went down two steps into the vast nave of the temple.

The wild tumult that she had heard on first opening the door had
surprised and puzzled her; but now, as she timidly looked up and around
her, she felt a shock of horror and revulsion such as might come over a
man who, walking by night and believing that he is treading on flowers,
suddenly finds that the slimy slope of a bottomless bog is leading him to
perdition. She tottered and clutched at a statue, gazing about her,
listening to the uproar, and wondering whether she were awake or
dreaming.

She tried not to see and hear what was going on there; it was revolting,
loathsome, horrible; but it was too manifest to be overlooked or ignored;
its vulgarity and horror forced it on her attention. For some time she
stood spell-bound, paralyzed; but then she covered her face with her