"And must we wait until he
returns?" we asked. No, that was unnecessary; we might take candles and
go into the cave alone, provided we shouted from time to time so as to
be found by the guide, and were careful not to fall over the rocks or
into the dark pools. Accordingly taking a trail from the house, we were
led around the base of the hill to the mouth of the cave, a small
inconspicuous archway, mossy around the edges and shaped like the door
of a water-ouzel's nest, with no appreciable hint or advertisement of
the grandeur of the many crystal chambers within. Lighting our candles,
which seemed to have no illuminating power in the thick darkness, we
groped our way onward as best we could along narrow lanes and alleys,
from chamber to chamber, around rustic columns and heaps of fallen
rocks, stopping to rest now and then in particularly beautiful
places--fairy alcoves furnished with admirable variety of shelves and
tables, and round bossy stools covered with sparkling crystals. Some of
the corridors were muddy, and in plodding along these we seemed to be in
the streets of some prairie village in spring-time. Then we would come
to handsome marble stairways conducting right and left into upper
chambers ranged above one another three or four stories high, floors,
ceilings, and walls lavishly decorated with innumerable crystalline
forms.
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