ed
before the stone slab which, as I remembered, filled the extreme end of
the gorge. My guide did something with the right-hand wall, and I felt
myself being drawn into a kind of passage. It was so narrow that two
could not go abreast, and so low that the creepers above scraped my
hair. Something clicked behind me like the turnstile at the gate of a
show.

Then we began to ascend steps, still in utter darkness, and a great
booming fell on my ear. It was the falling river which had scared me
on my former visit, and I marvelled that I had not heard it sooner.
Presently we came out into a gleam of moonlight, and I saw that we were
inside the gorge and far above the slab. We followed a narrow shelf on
its left side (or 'true right', as mountaineers would call it) until we
could go no farther. Then we did a terrible thing. Across the gorge,
which here was at its narrowest, stretched a slab of stone. Far, far
below I caught the moonlight on a mass of hurrying waters. This was our
bridge, and though I have a good head for crags, I confess I grew dizzy
as we turned to cross it. Perhaps it was broader than it looked; at
any rate my guides seemed to have no fear, and strode across it as if
it was a highway, while I followed in a sweat of fright. Once on the
other side, I was handed over to a second pair of guides, who led me
down a high passage running into the heart of the mountain.

The boom of the river sank and rose as the passage twined. Soon I saw a
gleam of light ahead which was not the moon. It grew larger, until
suddenly the roof rose and I found myself in a gigantic chamber. So
high it was that I could not make out anything of the roof, though the
place was brightly lit with torches stuck round the wall, and a great
fire which burned at the farther end. But the wonder was on the left
side, where the floor ceased in a chasm. The left wall was one sheet
of water, where the river fell from the heights into the infinite
depth, below. The torches and the fire made the sheer stream glow and
sparkle like the battlements of the Heavenly City. I have never seen
any sight so beautiful or so strange, and for a second my breath
stopped in admiration.

There were two hundred men or more in the chamber, but so huge was the
place that they seemed only a little company. They sat on the ground in
a circle, with their eyes fixed on the fire and on a figure which stood
before it. The glow revealed the old man I had se