sed back from his forehead.

"After waiting so many terrible years, what are a few more hours of
suspense? Since I have you, can I ever again feel tired?"

Behind them lay a dark undulating line, where oak and cedar had made
their last stand on the upward march; nearer, the spectral ranks of
stunted firs showed the outposts of forest advance; and a few feet from
the narrow path, a perpendicular cliff formed one wall of a deep canon,
where a glittering ribbon of water hurried to leap into the Pacific,
ere pursuing Winter arrested and bound it with icy manacles to its
stony bed. To the north dazzling white peaks cut strange solemn shapes,
like silver cameos on a ground of indigo sky; and overhead, burnished
lines of snow geese printed their glittering triangles on the paler
blue of the zenith, as the winged host dipped southward.

The monk moved on, and after a while his companions perceived that the
way descended rapidly until they reached the face of a rock that rose
straight and smooth as a wall of human masonry, and apparently barred
further progress. Taking from his bosom the twisted section of a
polished horn, only a finger's length, the cowled figure raised it to
his lips, and blew three whistles, that ended in a rising inflection
which waked all the wolfish pack of mountain echoes into fitful
barking. Two moments later, an answering signal seemed to issue from
the invisible jaws of Hades; a wild, quivering sepulchral cry, as of a
monster half throttled. Twenty feet beyond the spot where the party had
halted, a steep descent led them to a shelving canon, once the bed of a
broad mountain torrent, whose course some seismic upheaval had diverted
to other channels. Following for a few yards the sinuous stony way,
worn here and there into smooth circular cavities like miniature wells,
by the eddying of the ancient current and the grinding of pebbles, the
travellers turned a sharp angle, and found themselves at the mouth of
Tartarus.

The force of the stream had originally cut a low arch in its egress,
which human needs and ingenuity had broadened, heightened and closed by
heavy iron bars, slipped into stone slots. Behind this gateway
glimmered a faint light that brightened into a red star; and soon, a
figure clad in the long, black monastic gown, and bearing a huge torch
of blazing pitch pine, emerged from the bowels of the earth. There was
the rattle of a chain, the creak of a pulley, and the bars were lowered.

S