On we wound, the torches making stars of light in the intense
blackness, till at length we rounded a last corner where a great
curtain of woven grass, now drawn, was stretched across the cave. Here
we saw a very strange sight.
On either side of it, near to the walls, burned a large wood fire that
gave light to the place. Also more light flowed into it from its
further mouth that was not more than twenty paces from the fires.
Beyond the mouth was water which seemed to be about two hundred yards
wide, and beyond the water rose the slopes of the mountain that was
covered with huge trees. Moreover, a little bay penetrated into the
cavern, the point of which bay ended between the two fires. Here the
water, which was not more than six or eight feet wide, and shallow,
formed the berthing place of a good-sized canoe that lay there. The
walls of the cavern, from the turn to the point of the tongue of
water, were pierced with four doorways, two on either side, which led,
I presume, to chambers hewn in the rock. At each of these doorways
stood a tall woman clothed in white, who held in her hand a burning
torch.
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