those
of the tempest, or the thunder, or the earthquake. Onward they groped
their desperate way beyond the fiercest fall, until all at once they
came to a dreadful cavern shrouded in the deepest night and gloom.
Notwithstanding the whirl of waters, and the impetuous rush of the
blast, and, though the earth rocked around them like a canoe on the
stormy waves of the Spirits' Bay of Lake Huron(2), yet the brave and
patient Moscharr, unwearied and fearless, followed through pass and
pitfall, by stream and steep, the flight of his little conductor.
Keeping the lamp carried by the spirit-bird in view, he regarded not
the huge rocks toppling above his head, and each moment threatening
him with instant destruction, but fought on his perilous course, till
they had threaded the labyrinth, and found themselves in a cavern, as
unlike the first, as the tranquil summer sky is unlike the blustering
of the sky in the Moon of Storms.

The cavern, into which they now found entrance, was lit up by a blaze
of effulgence, which seemed as great as would be that of a hundred
suns shining at one time. So astonishing was the brightness, so
surpassing the beauty of those things which served for the lamps of
this vast hall, that the Iroquois warrior for a moment forgot the
cause which brought him thither, and stopped to admire the glories
which were scattered around him. It was, indeed, filled with all that
might dazzle and ravish the sight. Above them glittered a firmament
studded, it seemed, with stars, yet flashing a light far more
brilliant than the stars of night ever gave. And the sides of the
cavern glittered with the gorgeous hues reflected from the shining
stones of many colours wherewith it was set.

But why halts the spirit-bird guide, and why does he veil his lamp?
Why looks he with anxious eyes to yonder bright chambers in the
cavern? What beings are those which appear in that chamber, and whose
are those accents that fall on the eager ears of the lovers? I behold
a couch formed of spar that glitters like icicles in the beams of the
sun. It is covered with the softest grass that grows at the bottom of
the torrent, and upon it is laid, panting with weariness and fright, a
beautiful woman--it is the flower of the forest maidens, the lost
Mekaia! At her side, no longer counterfeiting the Iroquois warrior,
but showing himself in all his native ugliness, his body crooked and
disproportioned, his hair coarse as the weeds that grow on th