ancholy tune of her own dreaming,
just audible to me through the slow-travailing monotony of the engine;
till I was drunken with so sweet a woe, my God, a woe that was sweet as
life, and a dolour that lulled like nepenthe, and a grief that soothed
like kisses, so sweet, so sweet, that all that world of wood and gloom
lost locality and realness for me, and became nothing but a charmed and
pensive Heaven for her to moan and lullaby in; and from between my
fingers streamed plenteous tears that day, and all that I could keep on
mourning was 'O Leda, O Leda, O Leda,' till my heart was near to break.

The feed-pump eccentric-shaft of this engine, which was very poor and
flaky, suddenly gave out about five in the afternoon, and I had to stop
in a hurry, and that sweet invisible mechanism which had crooned and
crooned about my ears in the air, and followed me whithersoever I went,
stopped too. Down she jumped, calling out:

'Well, I had a plesentiment that something would happen, and I am so
glad, for I was tired!'

Seeing that nothing could be done with the feed-water pump, I got down,
took the bag, and parting before us the continuous screen, we went
pioneering to the left between a rock-cleft, stepping over large stones
that looked black with moss-growths, no sky, but hundreds of feet of
impenetrable leafage overhead, and everywhere the dew-dabbled profusion
of dim ferneries, dishevelled maidenhairs mixed with a large-leaved
mimosa, wild vine, white briony, and a smell of cedar, and a soft
rushing of perpetual waters that charmed the gloaming. The way led
slightly upwards three hundred feet, and presently, after some windings,
and the climbing of five huge steps almost regular, yet obviously
natural, the gorge opened in a roundish space, fifty feet across, with
far overhanging edges seven hundred feet high; and there, behind a
curtain which fell from above, its tendrils defined and straight like a
Japanese bead-hanging, we spread the store of foods, I opening the
wines, fruits, vegetables and meats, she arranging them in order with
the gold plate, and lighting both the spirit-lamp and the lantern: for
here it was quite dark. Near us behind the curtain of tendrils was a
small green cave in the rock, and at its mouth a pool two yards wide, a
black and limpid water that leisurely wheeled, discharging a little
rivulet from the cave: and in it I saw three owl-eyed fish, a finger
long, loiter, and spur themselves, and gaze. Leda