Hark! booming from unthought-of depths, a roar rolls up in majestic waves of echoing thunder. At this resonant burst, I tremble,--I think a prayer. "They are blasting below us," cries the Colonel, _de profundis_. Then up rushes a volume of thick, white smoke, and we are enveloped as in shrouds. I have no more fear,--but the odor, ah! that sulphureous, sickening, deathly odor! Faintness seizes me,--the ladder swims before my eyes,--I am paralyzed,--Death has me, I think! But the very excess of the danger has in it something of reviving power. I remember, that, just as I left my room,--whose quiet safety never before appeared so heavenly,--prompted by some instinctive impulse, I had placed a small vial of ammonia in the breast-pocket of my coat. I have wellnigh swooned with ecstasy, as I have inhaled the overcoming odors of some rare bouquet, love-bestowed and prized beyond gems; my senses have reeled in the intoxication of those wondrous extracts whose Oriental, tangible richness of fragrance holds me in a spell almost mystical in its enthralment; but I dare aver that no blossom's breath, no pungent perfume distilled by the erudite inspiration of Science, ever possessed a tithe of the delicious agony of that whiff of unromantic ammonia, which, powerful as the touch of magic, and thrilling as the kiss of love, snatched me back to life, arrested my tottering senses, as they blindly staggered on the very brink of certain death. When we reach the next level, and our faces are revealed to each other, with one voice they exclaim, "How frightfully pale you are!" But I say nothing. In fact, their familiar features, wearing no longer their daylight semblance, present an aspect at once grim and grotesque, and more like the spirits of my friends than their incorporated substances. Traversing the wild, rude corridors, we find that the path grows more perilous, the way more intricate; we have words of warning from our protectors, who often look back anxiously. They have begun to realize what they have done in yielding to a woman's odd caprice.