the unaccustomed pleasure of doing as she
was bid.

Deeper and deeper they went into the cleft of the rocks, stopping
sometimes to listen, and hearing nothing but the beating of their own
hearts when they did so.

There came sometimes, however, mysterious noises, as though the fairy
folks were playing pipes in the stony knolls, of which they had both
heard often enough. And also by whiles they heard a thing far more
awful--a plunge as of a great sea-beast sinking suddenly into deep
water.

"Suppose that it is some sea-monster," said Anna with eyes on fire; for
the unwonted darkness had changed her, so that she took readily enough
her orders from the less imaginative boy--whereas, under the broad light
of day, she never dreamed of doing other than giving them.

Once they had a narrow escape. It happened that Simeon was leading and
holding Anna by the hand, for they had been steadily climbing upwards
for some time. The footing of the cave was of smooth sand, very restful
and pleasing to the feet. Simeon was holding up the candle and looking
before him, when suddenly his foot went down into nothing. He would have
fallen forward, but that Anna, putting all her force into the pull, drew
him back. The candle, however, fell from his hand and rolled unharmed
to the edge of a well, where it lay still burning.

Simeon seized it, and the two children, kneeling upon the rocky side,
looked over into a deep hole, which seemed, so far as the taper would
throw its feeble rays downwards, to be quite fathomless.

But at the bottom something rose and fell with a deep roaring sound, as
regular as a beast breathing. It had a most terrifying effect to hear
that measured roaring deep in the bowels of the earth, and at each
respiration to see the suck of the air blow the candle-flame about.

Anna would willingly have gone back, but stout Simeon was resolved and
not to be spoken to.

They circled cautiously about the well, and immediately began to
descend. The way now lay over rock, fine and regular to the feet as
though it had been built and polished by the pyramid-builders of Egypt.
There was more air, also, and the cave seemed to be opening out.

At last they came to a glimmer of daylight and a deep and solemn pool.
There was a path high above it, and the pool lay beneath black like ink.
But they were evidently approaching the sea, for the roar of the
breaking swell could distinctly be heard. The pool narrowed till there
appeared