Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-fifth chapter of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.

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Take a look in a book and let's see what we can find take a chapter by chapter one by one at a time so many adventures and mountains we can climb take it word for word, line by line we Fight at a Time.

Video welcome to Bite at a Time books, where we read you your favorite classics.

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My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Le Ro.

Chapter 25 the Scorpion or the Grasshopper, which the Persians narrative concluded.

The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget all our past and present sufferings.

We now knew all that the monster meant to convey when he said to Christine Daie yes or no?

If your answer is no, everybody will be dead and buried.

Yes.

Buried under the ruins of the Paris Grand Opera.

The monster had given her until 11:00 in the evening.

He had chosen his time well.

There would be many people, many members of the human race up there in the Resplendent Theater.

What finer retinue could be expected?

For his funeral?

He would go down to the tomb, escorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richest jewels.

11:00 tomorrow evening.

We were all to be blown up in the middle of the performance if Christine Daier said no.

11:00 tomorrow evening.

And what else could Christine say but no?

Would she not prefer to espouse death itself rather than that living corpse?

She did not know that on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of many members of the human race.

11:00 tomorrow evening.

And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to the stone steps, for the light in the trap door overhead that led to the room of mirrors was now extinguished, and we repeated to ourselves 11:00 tomorrow evening.

At last I found the staircase.

But suddenly I drew myself up on the first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind what is the time?

Ah, what was the time for after all?

11:00 tomorrow evening.

Might be now, might be this very moment.

Who could tell us the time?

We seemed to have been imprisoned in that h*** for days and days, for years, since the beginning of the world.

Perhaps we should be blown up then and there.

Ah, a sound.

A crack.

Did you hear that?

There, in the corner.

Good heavens.

Like a sound of machinery again.

Oh, for a light.

Perhaps it's a machinery that is to blow everything up, I tell you.

A cracking sound.

Are you deaf?

Once your Deshagghmi and I began to yell like madmen.

Fear spurred us on.

We rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went.

Anything to escape the dark to return to the mortal light of the Room of Mirrors.

We found the trap door still open, but it was now as dark in the Room of Mirrors as in the cellar which we had left.

We dragged ourselves along the floor of the torture chamber, the floor that separated us from the powder magazine.

What was the time?

We shouted.

We called Monsieur De.

Shagged.

Me to Christine.

I to Eric.

I reminded him that I had saved his life.

But no answer saved that of our despair, of our madness.

What was the time?

We argued.

We tried to calculate the time which we had spent there, but we were incapable of reasoning.

If only we could see the face of a watch.

Mine had stopped, but Monsieur Deshagnies was still going.

He told me that he had wounded up before dressing for the opera.

We had not a match upon us.

And yet we must know.

Monsieur de Shagney broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands.

He questioned the hands of the watch with his fingertips, going by the position of the ring of the watch.

Judging by the space between the hands, he thought it might be just 11:00.

But perhaps it was not the 11:00 of which we stood in dread.

Perhaps we had still 12 hours before us.

Suddenly I exclaimed, hush.

I seemed to hear footsteps.

In the next room.

Someone tapped against the wall.

Christine daier's voice said, raul.

Raul.

We were now all talking at once on either side of the wall.

Christine sobbed.

She was not sure that she would find Monsier Deshagni alive.

The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the yes which she refused.

And yet she had promised him that yes if he would take her to the torture chamber.

But he had obstinately declined and had uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race.

At last, after hours and hours of that h***, he had that moment gone out, leaving her alone to reflect for the last time hours and hours.

What is the time now?

What is the time, Christine?

It is 11:00.

11:00.

All but five minutes.

But which 11:00?

The 11:00 that is to decide.

Life or death.

He told me so just before he went.

He is terrible.

He is quite mad.

He tore off his mask, and his yellow eyes shot flames.

He did nothing but laugh.

He said, I give you five minutes to spare your blushes.

Here, he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death.

Here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the mantelpiece in the Louis Philippe room.

In one of the caskets you will find a scorpion, in the other a grasshopper, both very cleverly, imitated in Japanese bronze.

They will say yes or no for you.

If you turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me when I return that you have said yes, the grasshopper will mean no.

And he laughed like a drunken demon.

I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the key of the torture chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me that request.

But he told me that there was no future need for that key and that he was going to throw it into the lake.

And he again laughed like a drunken demon and left me.

Oh.

His last words were the grasshopper.

Be careful of the grasshopper.

The grasshopper does not only turn, it hops.

It hops, and it hops jolly high.

The five minutes had nearly elapsed, and the scorpion and the grasshopper were scratching at my brain.

Nevertheless, I had sufficient lucidity left to understand that if the grasshopper were turned, it would hop and with it many members of the human race.

There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric current intended to blow up the powder magazine, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from hearing Christine's voice, explained to her in a few hurried words the situation in which we and all the opera were.

He told her to turn the scorpion at once there was a pause.

Christine.

I cried, where are you?

By the scorpion.

Don't touch it.

The idea had come to me, for I knew, my Eric, that the monster had perhaps deceived the girl once more.

Perhaps it was the scorpion that would blow everything up.

After all, why wasn't he there?

The five minutes were long past, and he was not back.

Perhaps he had taken shelter and was waiting for the explosion.

Why had he not returned?

He could not really expect Christine ever to consent to become his voluntary prey.

Why had he not returned?

Don't touch the scorpion, I said.

Here he comes.

Christine cried.

I hear him.

Here he is.

We heard his steps approaching the Louis Philippe room.

He came up to Christine, but did not speak.

Then I raised my voice.

Eric.

It is I.

Do you know me?

With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied, so you are not dead in there?

Well, then, see that you keep quiet.

I tried to speak, but he said coldly, not a word to Roga or I shall blow everything up.

And he added the honor rests with Madele.

Mademoiselle has not touched the scorpion.

How deliberately he spoke.

Mademoiselle has not touched the grasshopper with that composure.

But it is not too late to do the right thing there I open the caskets without a key, for I am a trap door lover and I open and shut what I please.

And as I please, I open the little ebony caskets.

Mademoiselle, look at the little deers inside.

Aren't they pretty?

If you turn the grasshopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up.

There's enough gunpowder under our feet to blow up a quarter of Paris.

If you turn the scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned.

Made, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of mare beers.

You shall make them a present of their lives.

For with your own fair hands you shall turn the scorpion.

And merrily, merrily, we will be married.

A pause.

And then, if in two minutes, Mademoiselle, you've not turned the scorpion, I shall turn the grasshopper in the grasshopper, I tell you.

Hops jolly high.

The terrible silence began anew the vy count day.

Shaggy, realizing that there was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees and prayed.

As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that I had to take my heart in both hands lest it should burst.

At last we heard Eric's voice.

The two minutes are passed.

Goodbye, mademoiselle.

Hop, grasshopper.

Eric.

Cried Christine.

Do you swear to me, monster, do you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?

Yes, to Hop at our wedding.

Ah, you see?

You said to Hop at our wedding.

Ingenious, child.

The scorpion opens the ball, but that will do.

You won't have the scorpion.

Then I turn the grasshopper.

Eric, enough.

I was crying out in concert with Christine.

Monsieur Deshagni was still on his knees, praying.

Eric.

I've turned to the scorpion.

Oh, the second through which we passed waiting, waiting to find ourselves in fragments amid the roar at the ruins, feeling something chronic beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hiss through the open trap door.

A hiss like the first sound of a rocket.

It came softly at first, then louder, then very loud.

But it was not the hiss of fire.

It was more like the hiss of water.

And now it became a gurgling sound.

guggle.

guggle.

We rushed to the trap door.

All our thirst, which vanished when the terror came, now returned with the lapping of the water.

The water rose in the cellars above the barrels, the powder barrels, barrels, barrels, any barrels to sell and we went down to it with parched throats.

It rose to our chins, to our mouths, and we drank.

We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank and we went up the stairs again in the dark.

Step by step went up with the water.

The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of the room.

If this went on, the whole house on the lake would be swamped.

The floor of the torture chamber had itself become a regular little lake in which our feet splashed.

Surely there was water enough now.

Eric must turn off the tap.

Eric.

Eric.

That is water enough for the gunpowder.

Turn off the tap.

Turn off the scorpion.

But Eric did not reply.

We heard nothing but the water rising.

It was halfway to our waists.

Christine.

Cried, Monsieur de Shagney.

Christine.

The water is up to our knees.

But Christine did not reply.

We heard nothing but the water rising.

No one.

No one in the next room.

No one to turn the tap.

No one to turn the scorpion.

We were all alone in the dark with the dark water that seized us and clasped us and froze us.

Eric.

Eric.

Christine.

Christine.

By this time we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in the water, carried away by an irresistible whirl.

For the water turned with us and dashed us against the dark mirror which thrust us back again.

And our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud were we to die here?

Drowned in the torture chamber?

I had never seen that eric, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazda ran had never shown me that through the little invisible window.

Eric.

Eric.

I cried.

I saved your life.

Remember?

You were sentenced to death.

But for me you would be dead now.

Eric.

We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage.

But suddenly my straying hand ceased the trunk of the iron tree.

I called Montre de Chagney and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree and the water rose still higher.

Oh, can you remember how much space is there between the branch of the tree and the dome shaped ceiling?

Do try to remember.

After all, the water may stop.

It may find its level.

There.

I think it is stopping.

No.

No.

Oh, horrible.

Swim.

Swim for your life.

Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming.

We choked.

We fought in the dark water.

Already we could hardly breathe the dark air above the dark water the air which escaped, which we could hear escaping through some vent hole or other.

I'll let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then glue our mouths to it.

But I lost my strength.

I tried to lay hold of the walls.

Oh, how those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers.

We whirled round again.

We began to sink.

One last effort, a last cry.

Eric.

Christine.

Gurgle, gurgle.

In our ears.

Gurgle, gurgle.

At the bottom of the dark water our ears went gurgle, gurgle.

And before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear between two gurgles barrels, barrels.

Any barrels to sell?

Thank you for joining Bite Out of Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

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