l
soul-sinking.

Creeping behind another shaft, we reach still another chasm, above which
piles of dark rocks lie heaped in such confusion as might result from a
great convulsion. There is a narrow path along its edge, and here the
stones are small; but, as we look up, the mighty masses frown down upon
us with threatening grandeur. Along this path, treading lightly, as
if gifted with wings, the Captain passes; then the Agent (for we had
slightly altered our order of march); _Mon Amie_ follows. She is
half-way past the danger, when an ominous pause,--we are ordered to
stop.

Down into the chasm rolls a stone, displaced by an unlucky step of our
pioneer. One stone is nothing,--but more follow that had been supported
by this: small ones at first,--but the larger rocks threaten a slide. If
they are not arrested in their course, she is lost!

What a moment that is! I dare not breathe. _Mon Amie_ stands
statue-like, awaiting the death which she believes is upon her. Not many
words are spoken. I think I feel all that her one glance conveys.
But the brave men beyond her, with instant unanimous action bracing
themselves against the sliding rocks, oppose their feeble force to the
down-sweeping agents of destruction; a moment more, and they would
have been too late. With the step of a frightened antelope _Mon Amie_
trembles past them. I see her safe, and hasten on. "Step lightly!" says
a voice full of suspense and fear, despite its calmness.

Step, indeed! As if I rest on those treacherous stones! My feet brush
them no more than the wing of a butterfly grazes the roses among which
it flutters. Step, forsooth! If ever the angels concerned themselves for
this atom in Creation's myriads, they hover round me now, they bear me
up, they teach me how to fly! Deprived now of their human props, how
the angry fragments leap and tumble and chase one another through the
echoing abyss below! These reverberations seem freighted with elfin
voices that jeer the insensate rocks for their baffled scheme of
mischief.

But they chanted a far different chorus, and the darkness saw another
sight, when, a few moons later, they dashed themselves down in
irresistible array, and bore with them in their desperate plunge the
lifeless bodies of two passing miners, in whose hearts, it may be, dwelt
at the moment only happy thoughts of the homes 'neath the blue skies to
which they were hurrying, the dear familiar sunlit Paradise that would
succeed the en