The centre had been
raised some few feet higher than the circumference, or possibly the
whole floor took its shape from the rounded hill of which it was the
apex; and from an open sluice immediately beneath the imperial throne a
flood of water gushed with a force that carried it straight to this
raised centre, over which it ran and rippled, and so drained back into
the scuppers at the circumference. Before reaching the centre it broke
and swirled around a row of what appeared to be tall iron boxes or
cages, set directly in face of the throne. But for these ugly boxes the
whole floor was empty. To and from these the little human figures were
hurrying, and from these too proceeded the thuds and panting and the
frequent groans that I had heard outside.
While I stood and gazed, Harry stepped forward into the arena.
"This also?" I whispered.
He nodded, and led the way over the copper floor, where the water ran
high as our ankles and again was drained off, until little dry spaces
grew like maps upon the surface, and in ten seconds were flooded again.
He led me straight to the cages, and I saw that while the roof and three
sides of these were of sheet iron, the fourth side, which faced the
throne, lay open. And I saw--in the first cage, a man scourged with
rods; in the second, a body twisted on the rack; in the third, a woman
with a starving babe, and a fellow that held food to them and withdrew
it quickly (the torturers wore masks on their faces, and whenever blood
flowed some threw handfuls of sawdust, and blood and sawdust together
were carried off by the running water); in the fourth cage, a man tied,
naked and helpless, whom a masked torturer pelted with discs of gold,
heavy and keen-edged; in the fifth a brasier with irons heating, and a
girl's body crouched in a corner--
"I will see no more!" I cried, and turned towards the great purple
canopy.
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