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 the sequel to his brief and wretched history! ... for this one end he had wandered out of the ways of his former life, and forgotten almost all he had ever known,--here was the only poor finale an all-wise and all-potent God could contrive for the close of His marvelous symphony of creative Love and Light! ... Ah, cruel, cruel! Then there was no justice, no pity, no compensation in all the width and breadth of the Universe, if Death indeed was the end of everything!--and God or the great Force called by that name was nothing but a Tyrant and Torturer of His helpless creature, Man! So thinking, dully and feebly, he pressed his hand on his aching eyes, to shut out the sight of that grim crowd of fleshless, rigid Shapes that everywhere confronted him, . . the darkness of the place seemed to descend upon him crushingly, and, reeling forward, he would have fallen in a swoon, had not a strong hand suddenly grasped his arm and supported him firmly upright. "How now, my son!"--said a grave, musical voice that had in it a certain touch of compassion, . . "What ails thee? ... and why art thou here? Art thou condemned to die! ... or dost thou seek an escape from death?"