"There are five steps," he said as he held the Abbé by the arm. "Take care."
The Abbé stumbled up the five steps. They had now entered a house, and Gérard imagined to himself it was probably some old hotel, like the Hôtel Pimodan, where Gautier, Beaudelaire, and others at one time were wont to assemble to disperse the cares of life in the fumes of opium. When they had proceeded a few yards, Pomerantseff warned him that they were about to ascend a staircase, and up many shallow steps they went, the Abbé regretting every instant more and more that he had allowed his vulgar curiosity to lead him into an adventure which could be productive of nothing but ridicule and shattered nerves. When at length they had reached the top of the stairs, the Prince guided him by the arm through what the Abbé imagined to be a hall, opened a door, closed and locked it after them, walked on again, opened another door, which he closed and locked likewise, and over which the Abbé heard him pull a heavy curtain. The Prince then took him again by the arm, advanced him a few steps, and said in a low whisper, "Remain quietly standing where you are, and do not attempt to remove the pocket handkerchief until you hear voices."
The Abbé folded his arms and stood motionless while he heard the Prince walk away a few yards. It was evident to the unfortunate priest that the room in which he stood was not dark, for although he could see nothing, owing to the pocket handkerchief, which had been bound most skilfully over his eyes, there was a sensation of being in strong light, and his cheeks and hands felt, as it were, illuminated. Suddenly a horrible sound sent a chill of terror through him--a gentle noise as of naked flesh touching the waxed floor--and before he could recover from the shock occasioned by the sound, the voices of many men, voices of men groaning or wailing in some hideous ecstasy, broke the stillness, crying--"Father of all sin and crime, Prince of all despair and anguish, come to us, we implore thee!"
The Abbé, wild with terror, tore off the pocket handkerchief. He found himself in a large, old-fashioned room, panelled up to the lofty ceiling with oak, and filled with great light, shed from innumerable tapers fitted into sconces on the wall--light which, though naturally _soft_, was almost fierce by reason of its greatness, for it proceeded from at least two hundred tapers. He had then been after all right in his conjectures: he was evidently in a chamber of some one of the many old-fashioned hotels which are to be seen in the Ile St. Louis, and indeed in all the antiquated quarters of Paris. It was reassuring, at all events, to know one was not in Hades, and to feel tolerably certain that a sergeant de ville could not be many yards distant. All this passed into his comprehension like a flash of lightning, for hardly had the bandage left his eyes ere his whole attention was riveted upon a group before him.