by a sudden impulse of curiosity, he made up his mind to descend.

He went down slowly and cautiously, counting each step as he
placed his foot upon it, . . there were a hundred steps in all, and
at the end the light he had seen completely vanished, leaving him
in the most profound darkness. Confused and startled, he stretched
out his hands instinctively as a blind man might do, and thus came
in contact with something sharp, pointed, and icy cold like the
frozen talon of a dead bird. Shuddering at the touch, he
recoiled,--and was about to try and grope his way up the stairs
again, when the light once more appeared, this time casting a
thin, slanting, azure blaze through the dense shadows,--and he was
able gradually to realize the horrors of the place into which he
had unwittingly adventured. One faint cry escaped his lips,--and
then he was mute and motionless,--chilled to the very heart. A
great awe and speechless dread overwhelmed him, . . for he--a living
man and fully conscious of life--stood alone, surrounded by a
ghastly multitude of skeletons, skeletons bleached white as ivory
and glistening with a smooth, moist polish as of pearl. Shoulder
to shoulder, arm against arm, they stood, placed upright, and as
close together as possible,--every bony hand held a rusty spear,--
and on every skull gleamed a small metal casque inscribed with
hieroglyphic characters. Thousands of eyeless sockets seemed to
turn toward him in blank yet questioning wonder, suggesting
awfully to his mind that the eyes might still be there, fallen far
back into the head from whence they yet SAW, themselves unseen,--
thousands of grinning jaws seemed to mock at him, as he leaned
half-fainting against the damp, weed-grown portal,--he fancied he
could hear the derisive laugh of death echoing horribly through
those dimly distant arches! This, . . this, he thought wildly, was