which continually heightened itself, was reflected in the chill gleam of the floor.  Suddenly, the roof came down, the floor went up, and they seemed to meet before me; but looking, I found a low opening, through which, drawing myself on the belly over slime for some yards in repulsive proximity to dead personalities, I came out upon a floor of sand and pebbles under a long dry tunnel, arched and narrow, grim and dull, without stalactites, suggestive of monks, and catacomb-vaults, and the route to the grave; and here the dead were much fewer, proving either that the general mob had not had time to penetrate so far inward, or else that those within, if they were numerous, had gone out to defend, or to harken to, the storm of their citadel.  This passage led me into an open space, the grandest of all, loftily vaulted, full of genie riches and buried treasures of light, the million-fold ensemble of lustres dancing schottishe with the eye, as it moved or was still:  this place, I should guess, being quite half a mile from the entrance.  My prying lantern showed me here only nineteen dead, men of various nations, and at the far end two holes in the floor, large enough to admit the body, through which from below came up a sound of falling water.  Both of these holes, I could see, had been filled with cement concrete—­wisely, I fancy, for a current of air from somewhere seemed to be now passing through them:  and this would have resulted in the death of the hiders.  Both, however, of the fillings had been broken through, one partially, the other wholly, by the ignorant, I presume, who thought to hide in a secret place yet beyond, where they may have believed, on seeing the artificial work, that others were.  I had my ear a long time at one of these openings, listening to that mysterious chant down below in a darkness most murky and dismal; and afterwards, spurred by the stubborn will which I had to be thorough, I went back, took a number of outer robes from the bodies, tied them well together, then one end round the nearest pillar, and having put my mouth to the hole, calling:  ’Anyone?  Anyone?’ let myself down by the rope of garments, the candle at my head:  I had not, however, descended far into those mournful shades, when my right foot plunged into water:  and instantly the feeling of terror pierced me that all the evil things in the universe were at my leg to drag me down to Hell:  and I was up quicker than I went down:  nor did my flight cease till, with a sigh of deliverance, I found myself in open air.

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