Once or twice she had met a few men, but solemn silence reigned in those subterranean chambers.
The sound of their approaching and receding steps had only served to make her aware of the complete stillness.

This was just as it should be--just as she would have it.

This peace reminded her of the profound silence of nature before a tempest bursts and rages.
Gorgo took off her veil as she went up the stairs, shook out the folds of her dress, and assumed the dignified and reverent demeanor which became a young girl of rank and position when approaching the altars of the divinity.

But as she reached the top a loud medley of noises and voices met her ear-flutes, drums ?--The sacred dance, she supposed, must be going on.
She came out into a room on one side of the hypostyle; her companion opened a high door, plated with gilt bronze and silver, and Gorgo followed him, walking gravely with her head held high and her eyes fixed on the ground, into the magnificent hall where the sacred image sat enthroned in veiled majesty.

They crossed the colonnade at the side of the hypostyle and went down two steps into the vast nave of the temple.
The wild tumult that she had heard on first opening the door had surprised and puzzled her; but now, as she timidly looked up and around her, she felt a shock of horror and revulsion such as might come over a man who, walking by night and believing that he is treading on flowers, suddenly finds that the slimy slope of a bottomless bog is leading him to perdition.