knew, and said that he doors of the baptistry in Florence were better
doors, and the doors made by a certain firm of builders in London were
worse. And then I asked them what it was that was coming after the
Sphinx because of the deed. And at first they would not say, and I
stopped oiling the door; and then they said that it was the
arch-inquisitor of the forest, who is investigator and avenger of all
silverstrian things; and from that they said about him it seemed to me
that this person was quite white, and was a kind of madness that would
settle down quite blankly upon a place, a kind of mist in which reason
could not live; and it was the fear of this that made them fumble
nervously at the lock of that rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was
not so much fear as sheer prophecy.

The hope that they tried to hope was well enough in its way, but I did
not share it; it was clear that the thing that they feared was the
corollary of the deed--one saw that more by the resignation upon the
face of the Sphinx than by their sorry anxiety for the door.

The wind soughed, and the great tapers flared, and their obvious fear
and the silence of the Sphinx grew more than ever a part of the
atmosphere, and bats went restlessly through the gloom of the wind
that beat the tapers low.

Then a few things screamed far off, then a little nearer, and
something was coming towards us, laughing hideously. I hastily gave a
prod to the door that they guarded; my finger sank right into the
mouldering wood--there was not a chance of holding it. I had not
leisure to observe their fright; I thought of the back-door, for the
forest was better than this; only the Sphinx was absolutely calm, her
prophecy was made and she seemed to have seen her doom, so that no new