Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 24. "Barrels!...Barrels!...Any Barrels to Sell?" (continued)

And he dragged himself along, saying: "Water! Water!"

And his mouth was open, as though he were drinking.

And my mouth was open too, as though I were drinking.

For we not only saw the water, but WE HEARD IT!...We heard it flow, we heard it ripple!...Do you understand that word "ripple?"...IT IS A SOUND WHICH YOU HEAR WITH YOUR TONGUE! ...You put your tongue out of your mouth to listen to it better!

Lastly--and this was the most pitiless torture of all--we heard the rain and it was not raining! This was an infernal invention. ...Oh, I knew well enough how Erik obtained it! He filled with little stones a very long and narrow box, broken up inside with wooden and metal projections. The stones, in falling, struck against these projections and rebounded from one to another; and the result was a series of pattering sounds that exactly imitated a rainstorm.

Ah, you should have seen us putting out our tongues and dragging ourselves toward the rippling river-bank! Our eyes and ears were full of water, but our tongues were hard and dry as horn!

When we reached the mirror, M. de Chagny licked it...and I also licked the glass.

It was burning hot!

Then we rolled on the floor with a hoarse cry of despair. M. de Chagny put the one pistol that was still loaded to his temple; and I stared at the Punjab lasso at the foot of the iron tree. I knew why the iron tree had returned, in this third change of scene!... The iron tree was waiting for me!...

But, as I stared at the Punjab lasso, I saw a thing that made me start so violently that M. de Chagny delayed his attempt at suicide. I took his arm. And then I caught the pistol from him...and then I dragged myself on my knees toward what I had seen.