We wandered through a fearful labyrinth for a period which utterly exhausted us. Of night and day we had no knowledge. I was sinking, when a low groan struck my ear. I listened pantingly; it came again. It was evidently from some object close beside me. I put forth my hand and pushed in the door of a large cavern; a flash of light illumined the passage. Another step would have plunged us into a pool a thousand feet below. CHAPTER XXXVI _Death in a Cavern_ [Sidenote: An Ocean Temple] The cavern thus opened to us[39] seemed to be the magazine of some place of trade. It was crowded with chests and bales, heaped together in disorder. What dangerous owners we might meet cost us no question; life and liberty were before us. I cheered Jubal till his scattered senses returned, and he clasped my feet in humiliation and gratitude. We were now like men created anew. We forced our way through piles that but an hour before would have been mountains to our despairing strength. The cavern opened into another, which seemed the dwelling of some master of extraordinary opulence. Silken tissues hung on the walls; the ceiling was a Tyrian canopy; precious vases stood on tables of citron and ivory. A large lyre, superbly ornamented, was suspended in an opening of the rock, and gave its melancholy music to the wind. But no human being was to be seen. Was this one of the true wonders that men classed among the fictions of Greece and Asia? The Nereids with their queen could not have sought a more secluded palace. Onward we heard the sounds of ocean. We followed them, and saw one of those scenes of grandeur which nature creates, as if to show the littleness of man. An arch three times the height of the loftiest temple, and ribbed with marble, rose broadly over our heads. Innumerable shafts of the purest alabaster, rounded with the perfection of sculpture, rose in groups and clusters to the solemn roof; wildflowers and climbing plants of every scent and hue gathered round the capitals, and hung the gigantic sides of the hall with a lovelier decoration than ever was wrought in loom. The awful beauty of this ocean temple bowed the heart in instinctive homage. I felt the sacredness of nature. But this grandeur was alone worthy of the spectacle to which it opened. The whole magnificence of the Mediterranean spread before our eyes, smooth as polished silver and now reflecting the glories of the west. The sun lay on the horizon in the midst of crimson clouds, like a monarch on the funeral pile, sinking in the splendors of a conflagration that lighted earth and ocean. [Sidenote: On the Edge of the Cavern]