s venit?_"

"_Introibo ad altare Dei,_" replied the priest, who had no sooner
uttered the words than the cloth was partially removed, and a voice
exclaimed, "_Benedicite, dilecte frater; beatus qui venit in nomine
Domini el sacrosanctae Ecclesiae_."

Reilly and his companion then entered the cave, which they had no sooner
done than the former was seized with a degree of wonder, astonishment,
and awe, such as he had never experienced in his life before. The whole
cavern was one flashing scene of light and beauty, and reminded him of
the gorgeous descriptions that were to be found in Arabian literature,
or the brilliancy of the fairy palaces as he had heard of them in the
mellow legends of his own country. From the roof depended gorgeous and
immense stalactites, some of them reaching half way to the earth, and
others of them resting upon the earth itself. Several torches, composed
of dried bog fir, threw their strong light among them with such effect
that the eye became not only dazzled but fatigued and overcome by the
radiance of a scene so unusual. In fact, the whole scene appeared to be
out of, or beyond, nature. There were about fifteen individuals present,
most of them in odd and peculiar disguises, which gave them a grotesque
and supernatural appearance, as they passed about with their strong
torches--some bright and some flashing red; and as the light of either
one or other fell upon the stalactites, giving them a hue of singular
brilliancy or deep purple, Reilly could not utter a word. The costumes
of the individuals about him were so strange and varied that he knew not
what to think. Some were in the dress of clergymen, others in that
of ill-clad peasants, and nearly one-third-of them in the garb of
mendicants, who, from their careworn faces, appeared to have suffered
severely from the persecution of the times. In a few minutes, however,
about half a dozen diminutive beings made their appearance, busied, as
far as he could guess, in employments, which his amazement at the
whole spectacle, unprepared as he was for it, prevented him from
understanding. If he had been a man of weak or superstitious mind,
unacquainted with life and the world, it is impossible to say what he
might have imagined. Independently of this--strong-minded as he was--the
impression made upon him by the elf-like sprites that ran about so
busily, almost induced him, for a few moments, to surrender to the
illusion that he stood among individual