Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 20. In the Cellars of the Opera (continued)

Yes, Raoul and the Persian were ready to faint, like Pampin the fireman. But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries, and spoke to them:

"Don't move! Don't move!...Whatever you do, don't come after me! ... I am the rat-catcher!...Let me pass, with my rats!..."

And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness, while the passage in front of it lit up, as the result of the change which the rat-catcher had made in his dark lantern. Before, so as not to scare the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern on himself, lighting up his own head; now, to hasten their flight, he lit the dark space in front of him. And he jumped along, dragging with him the waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds.

Raoul and the Persian breathed again, though still trembling.

"I ought to have remembered that Erik talked to me about the rat-catcher," said the Persian. "But he never told me that he looked like that... and it's funny that I should never have met him before.... Of course, Erik never comes to this part!"

"Are we very far from the lake, sir?" asked Raoul. "When shall we get there?...Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake!... When we are at the lake, we will call out!...Christine will hear us!...And HE will hear us, too!...And, as you know him, we shall talk to him!" "Baby!" said the Persian. "We shall never enter the house on the lake by the lake!...I myself have never landed on the other bank...the bank on which the house stands. ...You have to cross the lake first...and it is well guarded! ...I fear that more than one of those men--old scene-shifters, old door-shutters--who have never been seen again were simply tempted to cross the lake....It is terrible....I myself would have been nearly killed there...if the monster had not recognized me in time!...One piece of advice, sir; never go near the lake. ...And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing under the water, the siren's voice!"