They first passed through a vaulted hall which was shaped like an egg.  Seven doors, corresponding to the seven planets, displayed seven squares of different colours against the wall.  After traversing a long room they entered another similar hall.

A candelabrum completely covered with chiselled flowers was burning at the far end, and each of its eight golden branches bore a wick of byssus in a diamond chalice.  It was placed upon the last of the long steps leading to a great altar, the corners of which terminated in horns of brass.  Two lateral staircases led to its flattened summit; the stones of it could not be seen; it was like a mountain of heaped cinders, and something indistinct was slowly smoking at the top of it.  Then further back, higher than the candelabrum, and much higher than the altar, rose the Moloch, all of iron, and with gaping apertures in his human breast.  His outspread wings were stretched upon the wall, his tapering hands reached down to the ground; three black stones bordered by yellow circles represented three eyeballs on his brow, and his bull’s head was raised with a terrible effort as if in order to bellow.

Ebony stools were ranged round the apartment.  Behind each of them was a bronze shaft resting on three claws and supporting a torch.  All these lights were reflected in the mother-of-pearl lozenges which formed the pavement of the hall.  So lofty was the latter that the red colour of the walls grew black as it rose towards the vaulted roof, and the three eyes of the idol appeared far above like stars half lost in the night.

The Ancients sat down on the ebony stools after putting the trains of their robes over their heads.  They remained motionless with their hands crossed inside their broad sleeves, and the mother-of-pearl pavement seemed like a luminous river streaming from the altar to the door and flowing beneath their naked feet.

The four pontiffs had their places in the centre, sitting back to back on four ivory seats which formed a cross, the high-priest of Eschmoun in a hyacinth robe, the high-priest of Tanith in a white linen robe, the high-priest of Khamon in a tawny woollen robe, and the high-priest of Moloch in a purple robe.

Hamilcar advanced towards the candelabrum.  He walked all round it, looking at the burning wicks; then he threw a scented powder upon them, and violet flames appeared at the extremities of the branches.

Then a shrill voice rose; another replied to it, and the hundred Ancients, the four pontiffs, and Hamilcar, who remained standing, simultaneously intoned a hymn, and their voices—­ever repeating the same syllables and strengthening the sounds—­rose, grew loud, became terrible, and then suddenly were still.

There was a pause for some time.  At last Hamilcar drew from his breast a little three-headed statuette, as blue as sapphire, and placed it before him.  It was the image of Truth, the very genius of his speech.  Then he replaced it in his bosom, and all, as if seized with sudden wrath, cried out: