Four
paces brought me to the foot of more steps. I walked barefooted,
frequently pausing to listen. There were many carvings upon the
walls, but I had no leisure to examine them.
"Contrary to my anticipations, however, there were no branches in
this zigzag staircase, which communicated directly with the top
of the lofty plateau. When presently I felt the fresh mountain
air upon my face, I wondered why I could perceive no light ahead
of me. Yet the reason was simple enough.
"Since I had passed through that strange watergate to the City of
Fire, the day had ended: it was night. And when, finding no
further steps ahead of me, I passed along a level, narrow
corridor for some ten paces and, looking upward, saw the stars, I
was astounded.
"The yellow-robed man had disappeared, and I stood alone, looking
down upon that secret city which I had come so far to see.
"I found myself standing in deep undergrowth, and, pressing this
gently aside, I saw a wonderful spectacle. Away to my left was a
great white marble building, which I judged to be a temple; and
forming a crescent before it was a miniature town, each
white-walled house surrounded by a garden. It was Damascus
reduced to fairy dimensions, a spectacle quite unforgettable.
"The fact which made the whole thing awesome and unreal was the
presence, along the top of the temple (which, like that of
Hatshepsu at Deir elBahari, seemed to be hewn out of the living
rock but was faced with white marble) of seven giant flambeaux,
each surmounted by a darting tongue of blue flame!
"Legend had it that this was the temple built by Zoroaster and
preserved intact by that wonderful secretiveness of the Orient
through the generations, by a cult who awaited the coming of
Zoroaster's successor, of that Fire-Tongue who was to redeem and
revolutionize the world.
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