Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/68

 and the young man is its guardian. The light wanes slowly, and at last flickers out, and the shadows come trooping about us again thick and fast.

"The others are going to another part of the mine; but I linger behind them, unwilling to leave so soon this strange place. They have turned into the main aisle again; the voices and torches grow fainter and dimmer, and are finally lost. Moved by a sudden impulse, I quench the small spark of light I carry in my hand, and the darkness settles visibly about me like a pall. It presses upon my shoulders with an irresistible weight, and forces me to my knees upon the soft, salt-sanded earth. I cannot stand alone in this wonderful quiet darkness. A power that I have never felt before compels me to bend my head before the Invisible. My life, it seems to me, was in some mysterious way burning with that tiny point of flame in the vase of oil. With the failing of the flame my life has been extinguished, and I am now nothing but a shadow, like those that fled before me but a moment ago. Will the flame ever be rekindled? Shall I ever again reclaim my lost humanity? And if I could, would I raise my voice to make that claim heard? There is a pause unmeasured by sight or sound. Is it of minutes or of centuries? Am I still a human being, or a shadow of the mine? No senses are left me, but a power of vision which is not of the senses.

"I am conscious of a vast plain of water, blue, tranquil, limitless, waveless, for it is a sea without a shore; and in the heaven shines a spotless sun, calm, radiant, all-powerful. Time passes; are they seconds or eons