their acquisitiveness, had cast stones into the midst of the fairy
handicraft of the wizard water for the sake of a fragment; nor had the
village boys amused themselves here at the expense of the stalactites,
for happily they had been well trained in the horror of the
supernatural. The cavern ran for a certain distance south-west; then
the gallery turned at a sharp angle north-north-west, and continued in
this direction. We followed the stream some three or four hundred
yards, and then it entered a deep pool or lake under low rocks. We
tried a side-passage to see if it led round this obstacle, but it soon
came to an end. As I stood on the brink of the deep, black, silent
pool, I had a great longing to know what lay beyond; but I had to
content myself with imagining the unrevealed wonders of the cavern. It
would be just possible, by crouching down in a little boat, to pass
under the rock, which is probably no insuperable obstacle. The roof is
just as likely to form a high vault on one side of it as on the other.
The water is the serious obstacle; but it is safe to say, from the
character of the formation, that the deep pool does not extend very
far. A peculiarity of these underground streams of the _causses_ is
that they generally form a chain of pools.

If a shepherd-boy really lost his life in this cavern, he must have
done so by trying to pass the pool, unless he was washed into it by a
sudden rush of water after a heavy storm. It must be confessed that
the spot is calculated to fill one with superstitious dread. The calm
of the deep water into which the stream glides makes it quite easy to
imagine, with the help of the surroundings, that there is an evil
spirit lurking in it--perhaps that of the wicked Péhautier whom the
demons dragged down here. I had another grim thought: Supposing this
water, in obedience to some pressure elsewhere, should rise suddenly
and flood the lower part of the cavern! There is no knowing what