h blinded by the smoke and choked by the vapor,
could not be content without descending into the abyss and exploring the
very _penetralia_ of its mysteries. Steadying his way by means of a cord
which he fastened to a firm projecting rock, he began slowly and painfully
clambering downward. The wind was sweeping across the chasm from behind,
bearing the noxious vapors away from him, or he must inevitably have been
stifled. It took him some little time, however, to effect his descent; but
at length he found himself fairly landed on the dark floor of the gloomy
inclosure.

The ropy, pitch-black undulations of lava yawned here and there in red-hot
cracks and seams, making it appear to be only a crust over some fathomless
depth of molten fire, whose moanings and boilings could be heard below.
These dark congealed billows creaked and bent as the monk stepped upon
them, and burned his feet through his coarse sandals; yet he stumbled on.
Now and then his foot would crush in, where the lava had hardened in a
thinner crust, and he would draw it suddenly back from the lurid red-hot
metal beneath. The staff on which he rested was constantly kindling into a
light blaze as it slipped into some heated hollow, and he was fain to beat
out the fire upon the cooler surface. Still he went on half-stifled by the
hot and pungent vapor, but drawn by that painful, unnatural curiosity
which possesses one in a nightmare dream. The great cone in the centre was
the point to which he wished to attain,--the nearest point which man can
gain to this eternal mystery of fire. It was trembling with a perpetual
vibration, a hollow, pulsating undertone of sound like the surging of the
sea before a storm, and the lava that boiled over its sides rolled slowly
down with a strange creaking; it seemed the condensed, intensified essence
and expression of eternal fire, rising and still rising from some
inexhaustible fountain of burning.

Father Francesco drew as near as he could for the stifling heat and vapor,
and, resting on his staff, stood gazing intently. The lurid light of the
fire fell with an unearthly glare on his pale, sunken features, his wild,
haggard eyes, and his torn and disarranged garments. In the awful solitude
and silence of the night he felt his heart stand still, as if indeed he
had touched with his very hand the gates of eternal woe, and felt its
fiery breath upon his cheek. He half-imagined that the seams and clefts
which glowed in lurid lin