Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/237

 222 this indispensable adjunct to my further safety, and very likely what for a time I might have to depend on for sustenance, was still in my possession.

"I now heard the faint sound of dropping shot coming from the other side of the riven shell I now occupied, and believing that my lads were hotly engaged, I sought for a way back; but, following the course of the ledge, found that it descended and wound round, in and out, in a most curious manner, until, at last losing sight of the accursed place, I found myself sole occupant of a spot, a glance round which made my heart beat; for if the other was but a simple and unpicturesque horror, this was calculated to inspire one with a more than nameless awe.

"I stood in the midst of an excavated city,—a city as old, probably, as the mythic ages themselves; and, since all I saw suggested mythic types, this must have been one that may have assisted Hesiod in his 'Genesis.'

"I stood," continued Steve,—descending a little from the ladder Lempriere had lent him,—"I stood in the midst of a street, wide, smooth, level, clean, as if newly swept; subterranean pathways, hewn streets, stretched out on either hand, and, looking upward along the solid walls—or rather, exterior of houses, palaces, I know not what they may have been—all hewn, pillared, carved, some exquisitely, others on a more colossal scale of rudeness—all having a wild fantastic sort of life-in-death in their aspect. A strip of sky clipping sharply over the extreme edge of these singular cuttings, allowed the red sun to pour his rays downward, where they lighted up this enormous 'trench'—I can call it nothing else, street as it may have been, and stupendously beautiful too,—lighted it up and filled it with a stream of meandering, but unreal and shadowy gold.

"Everything," he continued, "as I looked upward in bewilderment, took an almost Alpine altitude, and row after row, the habitations, cut, carved, hollowed from the bottom to the very top, gave indications of an enormous humanity which must have existed here at one time.

"These streets, these chambers, these weird, solemn, silent receptacles of the mighty dead, now dust,—for I began to gather into my conjecture catacombs as adjuncts of a once mighty city, a city of that far, far off infinite past, which may be in the dreamland of mythology or the earliest cradles of fable, if you like,—made me dumb with astonishment, with awe; and I was traversing those awful silent spaces where the foot of man had trod—when"

"The last time, of course," broke in Lucy saucily, as though by way of relief; "but, I beg your pardon, Steve ; it is growing interesting, so please to go on."

"A turning to which I came at last,—there always is a turning in the very longest lane, you know,—a turning indeed invited me to pass into a wide, a spacious, a noble street; pillars, pilasters, pediment, frieze—I know not what adornment it had or had not—were there, and which would have challenged admiration for their rare beauty and finish had not the towering scale been so colossal as to be absolutely crushing in its vastness.

"As I strolled on, my astonishment, my awe, hovering on the confines of terror, increased; for while I admitted the singular harmony of proportion carried out on either side, I could not but think of Polyphemus of the Titans, of some one-eyed Cyclop, some bruising Lestrigonian, who might be thrusting his huge arm forth and snatching me up as a mere mouthful, after which morsel he would scarcely deign to pick his teeth.

"The unearthly sense of life, of existence suspended, and so remaining petrified, was almost overwhelming. As I still rambled on, I came to porticoes again leading to openings where there were no doors. 'Were there ever any doors to these wondrous edifices?' I asked myself. Towering pillars outlived windows, where windows there were none. 'Were there ever any?' As I walked now almost breathlessly along, having totally forgotten my pursuers in the novelty of my position, I could not but expect to see some one or other of the old dwellers come to the doorway and salute me. Taking courgecourage [sic] now, I entered into a dwelling that might perhaps be statelier than the rest, its chambers and stone staircases lighted up by means I cared not to account for, though the light was rather a softened gloom than a clear bright daylight such as I had left without.

"Without!—but where?

"To my surprise, to my dismay rather, I soon found that what I had taken for a dwelling was only the section of a vast catacomb, and the real ancient city, whose (once) living had peopled the grand and gloomy receptacle of the dead, must be contiguous to this spot, but which, as yet, I had not fallen upon; or, that it might have been subject to the influence of earthquake or volcanic fires, and so blended itself and become lost in the formless chaos of the surrounding mountain region.

"Retracing my steps and again passing on, the light began to stream along the floor, so to call it, ruddier, brighter, until, as I arrived at the extremity of the passage, it became a perfect blaze of sunshine. Before quitting the