ries, while luxuriant wild grape-vines, with pendant clusters of ripe
fruit, climbed upward from below to meet them, the whole thus forming an
almost perfect screen before the opening. Through the screen, however,
an observant eye caught the gleam of the stalactites within; the sun's
rays, piercing the foliage, lighted them up like so many sparkling
chandeliers. But our two travellers' thoughts were not on the beauties
of the place.

"If Manasseh should only come out now to meet us!" they both exclaimed
at once.

"There!" cried Aaron, "we both wished the same thing, and we have a sort
of superstition here that a wish so uttered by two at the same time is
bound to be fulfilled."

But Manasseh did not appear.

"Look there," said Aaron, with forced cheerfulness, pointing out the
wonders of the grotto; "see how the limestone pillars grow together from
above and below, till they meet and make one solid column." And all the
while he was thinking: "What if Manasseh should come back, not alone,
but with our two brothers! Yet is it right to ask so much of fate? Will
not Heaven be angry with me for cherishing such a wish? Ah, let Manasseh
himself come, even if he must come alone and with evil tidings!"

"See there, my dove," he continued aloud to his companion, "how the
arches extend back, one behind another, with balconies along the sides,
just like a theatre, and high up yonder a perch for the gallery gods."
Meanwhile he was saying to himself: "Oh, that brother of mine ought to
have been here long ago if he was coming at all." Then, aloud to Blanka:
"Hear me play on the organ up there,--for theatres have organs
sometimes. You notice the pipes, side by side, some longer and some
shorter, each for a different note. But you stay here,--the rocks are
wet and slippery,--while I go up and play you a pretty tune."

With that he clambered up the side of the cavern to a series of
stalactites that presented somewhat the appearance of organ-pipes, and
drew the handle of his hatchet across them, assuring his listener the
while that he was playing a beautiful melody. Blanka was expected to
laugh at this, and had Manasseh only been there, she could have done so
with a light heart.

"Don't you think this back wall looks like a stage curtain?" Aaron went
on. "With a little stretch of the imagination you might take it for the
curtain in the Kolozsvar theatre, with Apollo and the muses painted on
it. One feels almost like stamping one's