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Rh by some masses of gray rock, round which dwarf myrtles grew in great profusion. Here Minora stopped, and took from her basket a little lamp made of horn. Striking fire from some flints laid ready, she lighted the lamp; and giving Beatrice the basket, bade her follow her. Lifting up a heavy and luxuriant branch of the myrtle, she showed what seemed the rough bare rock beneath; and asking her companion to hold the lamp also, with both hands she raised a large slanting stone—it showed a passage, into which Beatrice entered with some difficulty, together with her companion. Minora first carefully replaced the myrtle-branch, then the stone, and taking the basket, bade Beatrice proceed along the passage, which was too narrow to admit of more than one at a time. This soon terminated in an open space, from which branched off several small paths. Minora now took the lead. "You will observe," said she, holding the lamp to the ground, "that the passage we take has a slight redness in the sand—the others lead to nothing." A short while brought them to the cave itself. By the lamp was dimly visible their own figures, and what seemed the immense