Another foot and I would have plunged to death in its awful depths. I shuddered and clung to the rocks as I gazed into it. Still trembling at my narrow escape, I looked up. Above my head the walls rose for hundreds, thousands of feet, until they seemed to meet. To right and left the stupendous precipices joined. It was a vast chasm, a bottomless crevice in the bowels of the mountain, and I was as effectively trapped as though I were still within the vast black cavern. Yet, I scarcely noticed these things, I hardly realized the predicament I was in, for the marvelous inexplicable phenomena that confronted me held all my attention, all my thoughts. Across the vast rift from where I stood, perhaps two hundred feet distant, was a second opening in the precipice, and from below this, streaming across the chasm as though projected from some titanic searchlight, was a great beam of vari-colored light that shimmered, flashed with rainbow hues, and glowed with transcending beauty. It seemed almost like a solid thing, like a giant beam of transparent iridescent glass spanning the chasm. It was the most marvelous sight I had ever seen. As I gazed upon it fascinated, forgetting all else, filled with awe and admiration, I gaped and stared with incredulous, unbelieving eyes. Outlined in the opposite opening, seeming to materialize from the light, appeared a woman! Every detail of her face, her figure, her garments was clearly outlined. And as I gazed at her, feeling that she was a vision, a figment of my overtaxed brain, I drew a sharp short breath, for surely such beauty To describe her as I saw her, bathed in the effulgence of that unearthly radiance, would be beyond words. Her perfect features, her beautiful face, her softly rounded breasts, her graceful arms and her tapering limbs seemed moulded from solid gold. Her hair, lustrous and black, hung below her waist in two long plaits interwoven with strands of gold and pearls. Her eyes, large, soft, fathomless, gazed at me with inexpressible joy and yearning; her scarlet lips parted in a welcoming, inviting smile. Upon her head was a diadem of mosaic in turquoise, rubies and pearls. Her only garment was a skirt of soft, semi-transparent cloth richly embroidered with gold and bordered with feather work in red, white and green. Upon her tiny feet were sandals fastened with golden lacings, and about her slender neck was a golden chain bearing a jewelled pendant that rested in the curve of her breasts and rose and fell and flashed like living fire as she breathed.