Chapter XVI

The wall, behind them, having completed the circle, closed again; and the two men stood motionless for a moment.

At last, the Persian decided to make a movement; and the darkness was made visible by a small dark lantern. The little red disk was turned in every direction and Raoul saw that the floor, the walls and the ceiling were all formed of planking. Later, Raoul learned that Erik had found a secret passage, contrived at the time of the Paris Commune.

“Let go!” said a voice.

The cellars of the Opera are enormous and they are five in number. Raoul followed the Persian and wondered what he would have done without his companion in that extraordinary labyrinth. They went down to the third cellar; and their progress was still lit by some distant lamp.

The lower they went, the more precautions the Persian seemed to take.

Suddenly, a loud voice made them stop. They turned their heads, and they saw the head of fire behind their two heads. It had followed them.

At the same time, they began to perceive a certain noise of which they could not guess the nature. It was a noise as though thousands of nails had been scraped against a blackboard.

They began to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on, gaining on them. They could see its features clearly now. The eyes were round and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large, with a hanging lower lip.

The Persian and Raoul could retreat no farther and flattened themselves against the wall, not knowing what was going to happen. And the fiery face came on with its noise!

Raoul and the Persian could no longer restrain their cries of horror, dismay and pain. But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries, and spoke to them:

“Don’t move! Don’t move! Whatever you do, don’t come after me! I am the rat-catcher! Let me pass, with my rats!”

And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness. He had turned his dark lantern on himself, lighting up his own head; he lit the dark space in front of him. And he jumped along, dragging with him the waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds.

Raoul and the Persian breathed again, though still trembling.

“I ought to have remembered that Erik talked to me about the rat-catcher,” said the Persian. “But he never told me that he looked like that. And it’s funny that I should never have met him before.”

“Are we very far from the lake, sir?” asked Raoul. “When shall we get there? Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake! When we are at the lake, we will call out! Christine will hear us! And he will hear us, too! And, as you know him, we shall talk to him!”

“Baby!” said the Persian. “We shall never enter the house on the lake by the lake! I myself have never landed on the other bank, the bank on which the house stands. You have to cross the lake first and it is well guarded! One piece of advice, sir; never go near the lake. And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing under the water, the siren’s voice!”

“But then, what are we here for?” asked Raoul. “If you can do nothing for Christine, at least let me die for her!”

The Persian tried to calm the young man.

“We have only one means of saving Christine Daae, believe me, which is to enter the house unperceived by the monster.”

“And is there any hope of that, sir?”

“Ah, if I had not that hope, I would not have come to fetch you!”

“And how can one enter the house on the lake without crossing the lake?”

“From the third cellar. I will tell you the exact place, sir, exactly at the spot where Joseph Buquet died. Come, sir, take courage and follow me! But where are we?”

The Persian lit his lamp again and flung its rays down two enormous corridors that crossed each other.

“We must be,” he said, “in the part used more particularly for the waterworks. I see no fire coming from the furnaces.”

He went in front of Raoul, seeking his road. Then they had to protect themselves against the glow of a sort of underground forge, which the men were extinguishing, and at which Raoul recognized the demons whom Christine had seen at the time of her first captivity.

“If I am not mistaken, this is a wall that might easily belong to the house on the lake.”

At the Persian’s words, Raoul flung himself against the wall and listened eagerly. But he heard nothing.

The Persian darkened his lantern again.

“Look out!” he said. “Silence! For we shall try another way of getting in.”

And he led him to the little staircase by which they had come down lately. They went up, stopping at each step, peering into the darkness and the silence, till they came to the third cellar. Here the Persian motioned to Raoul to go on his knees; and, in this way, crawling on both knees, they reached the end wall.

The Persian, still kneeling, stopped and listened. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate and looked at Raoul; then he turned his eyes upward, toward the second cellar, which sent down the faint glimmer of a lantern. This glimmer seemed to trouble the Persian.

Then the Persian had pressed against the wall. A stone gave way, leaving a hole in the wall. The Persian took his pistol from his pocket and made a sign to Raoul to do as he did.

And, resolutely, still on his knees, he wiggled through the hole in the wall. Raoul followed him.

The hole was very narrow. Then the Persian took out his dark lantern again, stooped forward, examined something beneath him and immediately extinguished his lantern. Raoul heard him say, in a whisper:

“We shall have to drop a few yards, without making a noise; take off your boots.”

The Persian handed his own shoes to Raoul.

“Put them outside the wall,” he said.

He crawled a little farther on his knees, then turned right round and said:

“I am going to hang by my hands from the edge of the stone and let myself drop into his house. You must do exactly the same. Do not be afraid. I will catch you in my arms.”

Raoul soon heard a dull sound, evidently produced by the fall of the Persian, and then dropped down. He felt himself clasped in the Persian’s arms.

“Hush!” said the Persian.

And they stood motionless, listening.

The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible. Then the Persian turned the lantern’s rays over their heads, looking for the hole through which they had come, and failing to find it:

“Oh!” he said. “The stone has closed of itself!”

Chapter XVII

Raoul’s companion proved to be a daroga; daroga is Persian for chief of police.

The Persian’s Narrative

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the “trap-door lover,” as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. The darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear. It was then that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.

I floated on the water and the silence was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it. It followed me, moved with me and was very soft. I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice. I leaned over, leaned still farther. Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible force. I should certainly have been lost, if I had not had time to give a cry by which Erik knew me. For it was he; and, instead of drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and laid me gently on the bank:

“How imprudent you are!” he said. “Why try to enter my house? I never invited you! I don’t want you there, nor anybody! Did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me?”

He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already called the trick of the siren. He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik, who is a real monster—I have seen him at work in Persia, alas—is also, in certain respects, a regular child. He laughed and showed me a long reed.

“It’s the silliest trick you ever saw,” he said, “but it’s very useful for breathing and singing in the water. I learned it from the pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers”.

“It’s a trick that nearly killed me!” I said. “And it may have been fatal to others! You know what you promised me, Erik? No more murders!”

“Have I really committed murders?” he asked.

“Wretched man!” I cried. “Remember that, Erik: I saved your life! Erik, swear that…”

“What?” he retorted. “You know I never keep my oaths.”

“Tell me… you can tell me, at any rate…”

“Well?”

“Well, the chandelier… the chandelier, Erik?”

“What about the chandelier?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh,” he sniggered, “It wasn’t I! The chandelier was very old and worn.”

When Erik laughed, he was more terrible than ever. He jumped into the boat.

“Very old and worn, my dear daroga! Very old and worn, the chandelier! It fell of itself! It came down with a smash! And now, daroga, take my advice and go and dry yourself, or you’ll catch a cold! And never get into my boat again. And, whatever you do, don’t try to enter my house: I’m not always there, daroga!”

So saying, and still chuckling, he pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake.

From that day, I gave up all thought of penetrating into his house by the lake. That entrance was obviously too well guarded, especially since he had learned that I knew about it. But I felt that there must be another entrance, for I had often seen Erik disappear in the third cellar, when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.

Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived in a perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I was concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.

And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought to myself, “I should not be surprised if that were Erik,” even as others used to say, “It’s the ghost!” Poor devils! If they had known that the ghost existed in the flesh, they would not have laughed!

Although Erik announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and that he had become the most virtuous of men, I could not believe it.

I soon discovered the curious link established between the monster and Christine Daae. Using hollow bricks, he made his voice near to Christine. I discovered the trap-door that enabled Erik to go straight to the cellars below the stage.

A few days later, I saw Erik and Christine Daae together. And the horse, which had disappeared from the stables under the Opera, was standing quietly beside them. It was terrible. But before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on the head that stunned me.

When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had disappeared. I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the house on the lake.

However, I resolved to be extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the shore of the lake. But the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me. At last my patience was rewarded. One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees. I was certain that he could not see me. He passed between the scene behind which I stood and went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone. He passed through the hole, and the stone closed behind him.

I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my turn. Everything happened as with Erik. But I was careful not to go through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside. So I left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone.

I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and Christine Daae, because of the terrible thought that Erik was capable of anything.

He filled Christine’s mind, but the dear child’s heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. While they played about, on the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little suspected that some one was watching over them. I was prepared to do anything: to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police afterward. But Erik did not show himself.

On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I came to the theater late in the evening. I had spent a horrible day, after reading in a morning paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and the Vicomte de Chagny.

I was prepared to watch Christine Daae’s abduction, which naturally surprised everybody. I was quite certain that she had been juggled away by Erik, that prince of conjurers. And I thought that this was the end of Christine.

No doubt that Erik was thinking only of his captive. This was the moment to enter his house through the third cellar; and I resolved to take with me that poor desperate viscount. I had sent my servant for my pistols. I gave one to the viscount and advised him to hold himself ready to fire, for, after all, Erik might be waiting for us behind the wall.

After avoiding the door-shutters and the firemen, after meeting the rat-catcher, the viscount and I arrived without obstacle in the third cellar. I worked the stone, and we jumped into the house which Erik had built himself in the double case of the foundation-walls of the Opera. And this was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, because Erik was one of the chief contractors and continued to work by himself when the works were officially suspended.

Erik had built a certain palace. He soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was overheard or repeated by an echo. With his trap-doors the monster was responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds. He hit upon astonishing inventions. Of these, the most curious, horrible and dangerous was the torture-chamber. So we found ourselves in that chamber.

I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I moved the little red disk of my lantern over the walls. M. de Chagny noticed it and asked:

“What is the matter, sir?”

I made him a violent sign to be silent.