At the bottom of the flight of steps leading down into it
(the top of which, as we have already observed, was alone visible from
the entrance in the temple recess) was fixed the image of a dragon
formed in brass.
The body of the monster, protruding opposite the steps almost at a right
angle from the wall, was moved in all directions by steel springs, which
communicated with one of the lower stairs, and also with a sword placed
in the throat of the image to represent the dragon's tongue. The walls
around the steps narrowed so as barely to admit the passage of the human
body when they approached the dragon. At the slightest pressure on the
stair with which the spring communicated, the body of the monster bent
forward, and the sword instantly protruded from its throat, at such a
height from the steps as ensure that it should transfix in a vital part
the person who descended. The corpse, then dropping by its own weight
off the sword, fell through a tunnelled opening beneath the dragon,
running downward in an opposite direction to that taken by the steps
above, and was deposited on an iron grating washed by the waters of the
Tiber, which ran under the arched foundations of the temple.
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