retrousse_ went yet higher up in the air. Feeling that the maid knew
better than I, I meekly put one on as I had been taught from my babyhood
to wear an apron, when a sudden twitch brought it around _behind_. She
quickly adjusted the others in the same fashion. We dared not look at
each other, and each assumed a manner as if attired in the court costume
of the country; but I venture to say that more grotesque, ridiculous
creatures never went out into the daylight, Cecilia, going first, wisely
did not attempt to go through the door full front, and we sidled after
her to avoid collision between our stiff sail-like trousers and the
door-jambs.

We tried to believe that clothes do not make the woman,--they do much
toward it,--and with an air of great dignity went into the face of that
miscellaneous company, to be greeted with a terrific and tremendous
shout of laughter. A panic seized us, and I found myself standing stock
still in the middle of the road, as if stage-struck, the others running
like the wind. It was for a moment only, and I followed, the laughter
sounding more and more demoniacal to my ears. I was impelled as never
before in my life. Was some one striking me from behind? It was that
diabolical leathern apron giving me a blow at every step, its violence
increasing with my ever-accelerated speed. How grateful the shelter of
that cave-like aperture in the mountain, where stood the gentlemen
similarly attired, the curate so absurd that we forgot all about his
other "cloth" and laughed immoderately in his face. Samayana was still
picturesque. Cecilia was in a rage. "I'll never cross that road again
before those horrid people, if I stay here a thousand years!" she
exclaimed, with flashing eyes; and Elise breathlessly gasped,
"Oh-that-awful-apron! It-beat-me-as-I-ran,-like-a-whip.
I-felt-like-a-donkey-pursued-by-the-donkey-boy!"

The guide lighted our lanterns, and, with a last hysterical laugh, we
followed him into the earth, through long, narrow, humid passage-ways,
the temperature not unpleasant, other passage-ways branching off and
suggesting the labyrinth which we knew extended for a great distance in
every direction. We finally came to a lighted chamber, the entrance to
the shaft. The flickering lights showed us the end of a great, smooth,
wooden beam, which, at an angle of forty-five degrees, seemed to be
going down into darkness, ending nowhere, as far as we could see. We had
not been prepared in our mind