to a low door which opened behind the
Great Altar. A whirlwind, as if from plains of ice, blew upon them from
the subterranean passages below, and the flame of the taper streamed
upon the blast, swaying and torn into a line of dying sparks. And thus
they commenced the plunge into the very bosom of night, descending ever
lower and lower, exploring depth after depth, until at last they had
worked their way through the narrow and winding passages, and stood in
the sublime silence of the immensity of space.
Their taper had long ago gone out, but they needed not its flickering
light. The swamp-fires of the night, the corpse-lights, the
will-o'-the-wisps, sometimes fell like falling stars; sometimes rose
like rising moons. Countless cemeteries seemed moving on in this weird
light, one solemnly following the other, and on the dark gate of each
glittered, as if graved in frosted silver, the name of the Murdered
Nation, and on the white crosses gleaming within, the names of her
martyred children. Vast piles of skeletons, of bones and skulls, lay in
the path of the young man, and as he advanced he read the glorious
inscriptions.
It now seemed to him that the ghosts of the buried were also moving on
before him, increasing constantly in number, and all moaning as they
sped on, until at last they seemed to condense into a murky vapor like a
trailing storm-cloud, growing ever more and more pervading, and
murmuring with thousands upon thousands of sad, but spirit-stirring
national songs. The air gleamed with the flashing of sabres and wild
waving of standards; conflagrations and flames filled the intervening
spaces, like vivid flashes of restless lightning, now gleaming, now
sinking into the bosom of the cloud. Faster and faster, farther and
farther whirls the cloud of spirits. Then in my dream I saw them
suddenly descend, driven over the earth like the withered leaves of
autumn--beaten low upon the ground and drifting on like the summer's
dust--while a strong cry burst from the driven shadows: 'O God, have
mercy upon us!'
The Wanderer stopped before the gate of an open sepulchre, on which was
graven the name of the many times Murdered. The letters blazed with a
soft lambent flame, and he fell reverently upon his knees. Penetrated
with mystic awe, he quivered from head to foot when he arose, and wept
tenderly as he crossed the threshold.
A soft light, like that of an evening late in autumn, dimly illumined
the space within.
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