We selected six veteran miners to watch our descent; and as the cage
held only one at a time, the engineer descended first; and when he had
gained the ledge at which he had before halted, the cage rearose for me.
I soon gained his side. We had provided ourselves with a strong coil of
rope.

The light struck on my sight as it had done the day before on my
friend's. The hollow through which it came sloped diagonally: it seemed
to me a diffused atmospheric light, not like that from fire, but soft
and silvery, as from a northern star. Quitting the cage, we descended,
one after the other, easily enough, owing to the juts in the side, till
we reached the place at which my friend had previously halted, and which
was a projection just spacious enough to allow us to stand abreast. From
this spot the chasm widened rapidly like the lower end of a vast funnel,
and I saw distinctly the valley, the road, the lamps which my companion
had described. He had exaggerated nothing. I heard the sounds he had
heard--a mingled indescribable hum as of voices and a dull tramp as of
feet. Straining my eye farther down, I clearly beheld at a distance the
outline of some large building. It could not be mere natural rock, it
was too symmetrical, with huge heavy Egyptian-like columns, and the
whole lighted as from within. I had about me a small pocket-telescope,
and by the aid of this, I could distinguish, near the building I
mention, two forms which seemed human, though I could not be sure. At
least they were living, for they moved, and both vanished within the
building. We now proceeded to attach the end of the rope we had brought
with us to the ledge on which we stood, by the aid of clamps and
grappling hooks, with which, as well as with necessary tools, we were
provided.

We were almost silent in our work. We toiled like men afraid to speak to