through the
trial without mischance, so that recently when I expressed a wish to
visit a certain Palace, and was informed that the most convenient manner
would be to descend into the nearest cavern, I had no reasonable device
for avoiding the encounter. Nevertheless, enlightened sire, I will
not attempt to conceal from your omniscience that I was by no means
impetuous towards the adventure. Owing to the pugnacious and unworthy
suspicions of those who direct their destinies, I have not yet been
able to penetrate the exact connection between the movements of these
hot-smoke chariots and the Unseen Forces. To a person whose chief object
in life is to avoid giving offence to any of the innumerable demons
which are ever on the watch to revenge themselves upon our slightest
indiscretion, this uncertainty opens an unending vista of intolerable
possibilities. As if to emphasise the perils of this overhanging doubt
the surroundings are ingeniously arranged so as to represent as nearly
as practicable the terrors of the Beneath World. Both by day and night a
funereal gloom envelops the caverns, the pathways and resting-places are
meagre and so constructed as to be devoid of attraction or repose, and
by a skilful contrivance the natural atmosphere is secretly withdrawn
and a very acrimonious sulphurous haze driven in to replace it.
In sudden and unforeseen places eyes of fire open and close with
disconcerting rapidity, and even change colour in vindictive
significance; wooden hands are outstretched as in unrelenting rigidity
against supplication, or, divining the unexpressed thoughts, inexorably
point, as one gazes, still deeper into the recesses of the earth; while
the air is never free from the sounds of groans, shrieks, the rattling
of chains, dull, hopeless noises beneath one's feet or overhead, and the
hoarse wordless cries of despair with which the attending slaves of the
caverns greet the distant clamour of every approaching fire-chariot.
Admittedly the intention of the device is benevolently conceived, and
it is strenuously asserted that many persons of corrupt habits and
ill-balanced lives, upon waking unexpectedly while passing through
these Beneath Parts, have abandoned the remainder of their journey, and,
escaping hastily to the outer air, have from that time onwards led a
pure and consistent existence; but, on the other foot, those who are
compelled to use the caverns daily, freely confess that the surroundings
to not i