openings in the wall on that side, probably
similar to the one through which I had reached this apparently
continuous passage.

Up, up I went, gaining courage though feeling weaker and weaker. Having
the wall on my right for so long a time, and seeming to be always
ascending, I began to think that I was in a sort of circular
honey-combed cavern.

It must be borne in mind that my progress was exceedingly slow,
consequent upon the necessity of feeling my way, step by step,
apprehensive of going over the brink of a precipice in some moment of
undue confidence. How many times I lay down to sleep, how many times I
rose to continue the task, I cannot tell; but, having been immured so
long, without food and without light, I began to feel stealing over me
a weariness of exhaustion which required the utmost power of the will
to battle.

All this time I kept ascending. Suddenly the passage seemed to open
wide, and, all at once, a bright light shot into the cavern. For the
moment I was blinded; a painful sensation struck me across the brows;
but I determined to behold the light at whatever cost. I opened my
eyes; and now, the shock of the dazzling brightness having passed away,
I saw the most beautiful effect I had ever beheld in my whole life.

A ray of sunlight fell in a round spot, bright and warm, on the wall at
the left. It entered by a small aperture higher up--in the wall at the
right. For a moment I looked around. I stood in a vast, rock-bound
chamber--an immense hall--faintly illuminated by reflection from the
direct sun-ray which fell upon a vein of quartz, and sparkled, lively
with flitting rainbow-colors. I could see the openings in the inner
wall, many of them a hundred feet high, nearly all very narrow, and for
the most part vertical. On the right, the wall was unbroken, with the
exception of the little hole, through which the blessed sunlight
streamed, in the pit of a broad, deep, conical sort of depression. Far
behind me, I could just make out the mouth of the passage from which I
had emerged into this spacious chamber, and before me the opening into
another also adjacent to the wall on my right.

I felt now more assured than ever, for I was certainly above-ground.
For a moment, I forgot my forlorn condition, and paused to admire the
splendor of the scene. A few minutes only, and it was gone. I lingered.
Should I wait to see this lovely sight renewed? Twenty-four hours must
elapse before the sun's return to t