By the dim light they
saw on all sides thousands of ghastly human heads, grinning at them in
death; the only signs of life being a few crouching devotees,
prostrate before an illuminated shrine at the extremity of this
Golgotha.
Both ladies paused, awe-stricken. Lady Mabel turned pale, and
Mrs. Shortridge, after gazing round her for a moment, uttered a little
shriek, and covered her face with her hands. To face these objects was
painful enough, but to have them grinning on her, as in mockery,
behind her back, was more than she could stand. So seizing old Moodie
by the arm, he being beside her, she rushed out of this charnel house,
and impatiently called to the others to join her in the church.
With an effort Lady Mabel stifled her contagious terror, and,
advancing further into the gloomy repository, inspected it on all
sides. There was little room left on the walls for more memorials of
mortality. Having in silence sated her curiosity and her sense of the
horrible, feeling all the while a strange reluctance to break the
deathlike stillness of the place by uttering a word, she at length
rejoined Mrs. Shortridge. After taking another look into this
apartment of death, her eye rested on the inscription over the arch.
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