yards of space, I came to another passage running at right angles, and
here an awful thing happened to me: the sharp draught caught my lamp
and extinguished it, leaving me in utter darkness in the bowels of that
mysterious place. I took a couple of strides forward so as to clear the
bisecting tunnel, being terribly afraid lest I should turn up it in
the dark if once I got confused as to the direction, and then paused to
think. What was I to do? I had no match; it seemed awful to attempt that
long journey back through the utter gloom, and yet I could not stand
there all night, and, if I did, probably it would not help me much, for
in the bowels of the rock it would be as dark at midday as at midnight.
I looked back over my shoulder--not a sight or a sound. I peered forward
into the darkness: surely, far away, I saw something like the faint glow
of fire. Perhaps it was a cave where I could get a light--at any rate,
it was worth investigating. Slowly and painfully I crept along the
tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling at every step with
my foot before I put it down, fearing lest I should fall into some
pit. Thirty paces--there was a light, a broad light that came and went,
shining through curtains! Fifty paces--it was close at hand! Sixty--oh,
great heaven!

I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could see
clearly into the little cavern beyond them. It had all the appearance of
being a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt in its centre with a
whitish flame and without smoke. Indeed, there, to the left, was a stone
shelf with a little ledge to it three inches or so high, and on the
shelf lay what I took to be a corpse; at any rate, it looked like one,
with something white thrown over it. To the right was a similar shelf,
on which lay some broidered coverings. Over the fire bent the figure of
a woman; she was sideways to me and facing the corpse, wrapped in a dark
mantle that hid her like a nun's cloak. She seemed to be staring at the