Still they descended, and now, in his usual voice of thunder, Julia’s companion uttered a strange halloo, which bellowed fearfully in the narrow void to which its echoes were confined. It seemed to be a summons to hitherto invisible beings, for immediately, a glare of unnatural light appeared below, and, moving through it, fiend-like forms as black as ebony. They received and steadied the machine as it rested on the ground, and then, on beholding what were its contents, set up loud laughter, accompanied by huzzas. The stranger looked fiercely at them, which seemed a little to check their mirth. Julia, instead of closing her eyes or fainting, was for the moment roused by despair, to a peculiarly vivid reception of surrounding impressions. And strange were the sights that met her gaze. The most fearfully gloomy vaults spread on every side; their low roofs, sustained by immense pillars of shining jet. The flooring, the walls, the roofing, every where of the same material. Long low aisles or passages, branching of in various directions, some lost in total darkness; in others, the view terminated by a far perspective, dimly illuminated, and filled with moving shadowy forms, the black countenances invisible through the obscurity, while the numberless eyes, that seemed scintillations from the unearthly lights the place afforded, were scattered over the gloomy region, like stars in the dark vault of midnight. To complete the wild effect of the whole scene, these terrific beings were all busily employed excavating on every side, as if to increase the dimensions of their infernal realm. CHAPTER XXV. “More fire than lustre had his eye, his form Less grace than grandeur.” “Why am I summoned here, to mix with thine My secret words, within the horrid cave Of Moma?” Near one of the entrances to ⸺haven, the chimneys and slating of a miserable looking row of houses, appear quite at the feet of the traveller; consequently, on a level with the road which runs along the brow of the hill, in the side of which the backs of the houses are sunk, while their faces front the valley. About an hour after the conclusion of the events related in our last chapter, but still before day-break, a horseman approached at a rapid pace along the road just described. He turned the animal suddenly down a narrow rugged abrupt descent, which brought him immediately in front of the said row of houses.