These stately columns, soaring vaults, and sweeping marble draperies were strangely out of proportion to the narrowness of the place. But now the sinuous aisle broadened out, and the style of the architecture was changed entirely. We were at the junction chamber where, in the remote past, two big streams came down from the yawning passages to the left and right, and met here, probably as the main stream of the cavern. The roof is a spacious dome, hung with resplendent candelabra. But the unique feature of the place, the thing that impresses itself on the memory as one of the most dazzling creations of the wonder-working calcite, is the stalagmite bridge. Bridge, I say, but it is more than a bridge, for its complicated arches support a beautiful piazza, with a huge array of dripstone terraces, crystal basins, massive pedestals, and obelisks of stalagmite, which all but fills the chamber and extends some distance up the alcoves behind. Standing on one of the great hemispheres of dripstone, one could put one's head among the pendulous shafts above, and see how each was marvellously twisted, moulded, and fantastically embossed and gemmed with flashing crystals. The splash formation covered everything beneath the roof, save portions of the polished floor, with millions of tiny spicules. We had to move about cautiously, not only for fear of doing damage, but to avoid gaping pitfalls in the bridge, the surface of which was smooth as ice. [Illustration: STALACTITE CHAMBER, SWILDON'S HOLE. _Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._] Whilst we were at work photographing a distant shout was heard, and soon the two men who had followed us down arrived at the big chamber. But our party was again reduced to its original four by the departure of two other members, who were to go back by the aquatic route in order to pick up certain articles that had been deposited on the way down. We ourselves hoped to get to the surface by another and a drier course. At the previous exploration two men had missed the rest of the party, and found their way, after divers adventures, through the ramifications of the cavern, to what they described as a great stalactite chamber, which was presumably our gallery. When they reached it, however, no one was there, nor any trace of human presence; either the explorers had finished their work and departed, or the pair had missed their way altogether. It was believed that they had come down to this very spot by the gallery joining this one on the north, and we purposed following that passage out. But this, as we presently discovered, was all wrong.