Lady Betty Across the WaterWilliamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
General
Lady Betty Across the Water
Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
British -- United States -- Fiction; Voyages and travels -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
We went into the house again, by a roundabout way, and it wasn't until
we were in the big hall that we learned just how Aladdin's Cave was to
be found. On a background of dark red flowers, made into a great shield
and hung over a door, glittered and scintillated three words, in
electric light, "To Aladdin's Cave." The letters had been lighted up
only since I had been gone, for I suppose the idea was to make everyone
go into the Maze first.
We had to pass through several rooms and corridors, all of which had
been emptied of furniture and lined with canvas scenery cleverly
painted to illustrate events in the story of Aladdin. Everything was
shown up to the time that Aladdin went down into the Cave at the
bidding of the magician disguised as his "uncle"; and then came the
entrance of the cave itself, which was done in imitation rockwork. But
I knew that it was the way down to the cellar. Either the stairs had
been removed, or else covered up with a theatrical kind of embankment,
that made a winding path, twisting back and forth under a roof of the
imitation rock, and sloping always downward. At the bottom was a screen
of spun glass, made to look like a falling cataract of bright water,
and until you had passed out from behind it you saw nothing except a
glow of rosy light filtering through the transparent glass. But when
you did come out, unless you were a stick or a stone, you couldn't
resist giving an "Oh!" of surprised admiration.
The whole cellar--at least all of it that was left visible--had been
turned into a fairy cave of jewels. The walls and ceiling looked like
rocks studded with blazing rubies and flashing diamonds. The rough
pillars which supported the floor of the house above were great
sparkling stalactites and stalagmites. The cemented floor was covered
with sand that glittered like diamond dust, and there were fruit trees
and rose bushes, rows of tall hollyhocks, and buds of tulips all
apparently made of illuminated jewels, something like the
transformation scene in a Pantomime they once took me to see--only a
hundred times prettier.
At the far end of the Cave a bright red light kept coming and going,
but I couldn't see by what it was made, because of the laughing crowd
collected round it. We went nearer, and as others moved away we took
their places, so that at last we saw what caused the light and made the
great attraction for the people.
It was a giant lamp of a strange shape, standing up to the height of
four or five feet from the floor, on a pedestal; and behind it stood
the Genie, a fearful and wonderful apparition who said things, in a
deep bass voice, which made everybody shout with laughter. "It's Fred
Kane, the great Funny Man," said somebody.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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