The Prince, seizing the chain with both his hands, now swung across
the ravine. As he landed, the chain parted from the rock, swiftly
disappeared down the opposite aperture, and its covering closed with the
same low, solemn murmur as before.
Alroy proceeded for about a hundred paces through a natural cloister
of basalt until he arrived at a large uncovered court of the same
formation, which a stranger might easily have been excused for believing
to have been formed and smoothed by art. In its centre bubbled up a
perpetual spring, icy cold; the stream had worn a channel through the
pavement, and might be traced for some time wandering among the rocks,
until at length it leaped from a precipice into a gorge below, in a
gauzy shower of variegated spray. Crossing the court, Alroy now entered
a vast cavern.
The cavern was nearly circular in form, lighted from a large aperture
in the top. Yet a burning lamp, in a distant and murky corner, indicated
that its inhabitant did not trust merely to this natural source of the
great blessing of existence. In the centre of the cave was a circular
and brazen table, sculptured with strange characters and mysterious
figures: near it was a couch, on which lay several volumes.
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