Chapter 21

I hid in my coffin, hoping that Erik wouldn't find me. I lay reading Sherlock Holmes until almost eleven o'clock the next evening. Then, I waited until I heard Erik limping past my room, and sneaked out after him.

I followed him into the room, and Christine noticed me, even if Erik didn't. He went up to Christine and stood in silence.

Then from inside the torture-chamber, we heard the Persian's voice: "Erik! It is I! Do you know me?"

With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied. "So you are not dead in there? Well, then, see that you keep quiet." The Persian tried to speak, but Erik said coldly, "Not a word, Daroga, or I shall blow everything up." And he added, "The honor rests with mademoiselle. . . . Mademoiselle has not touched the scorpion"-how deliberately he spoke!- "Mademoiselle has not touched the grasshopper"-with that composure!-"But it is not too late to do the right thing. There,, I open the caskets without a key, for I am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please. I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dears inside. Aren't they pretty? If you turn the grasshopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up. There is enough gunpowder under our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris. If you turn the scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned. Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's . . . you shall make them a present of their lives. . . . For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the scorpion. . . . And merrily, merrily, we will be married!"

A pause, and then: "If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I shall turn the grasshopper . . . and the grasshopper, I tell you, hops jolly high!"

A terrible silence, in which I started shaking. At last, Erik said,

"The two minutes are past. . . . Goodbye, mademoiselle. . . . Hop, grasshopper! . . ."

"Erik!" Cried Christine, "Do you swear to me, monster, do you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn? . . ."

"Yes, to hop to our wedding."

"Ah, you see! You said to hop!"

"At our wedding, you ingenious child! . . . The scorpion opens the ball. . . . But that will do! . . . You won't have the scorpion? Then I turn the grasshopper!"

"Erik!" I cried out.

"Enough!"

I didn't want to die. I was running towards the doorway when Christine burst out,

"Erik! I have turned the scorpion!"

Then I fell to the ground and saw no more.