At present, beyond the stark shape of the windlass, darkness reigned. We flung blocks of arragonite out into the void. There was an interval of silence, then a crash on the hard floor, and the missile burst into fragments. When the ray of our 2000-candle-power searchlight flashed across the abyss, we found ourselves looking into a chamber whose weird majesty held us spellbound. Its height is 110 feet, and the walls curve gradually over in an irregular dome. Hardly a square foot of this mighty wall-space is blank. Stripes and reticulations and pendulous lacework run all over it in enchanting disorder. Here a snow-white flood of calcite drops from an unseen cleft, there a cascade of many colours ripples down from roof to floor. There are great sheets of opaline enamel, curtains drooping in massy folds, silken fabrics wrinkled over the face of the rock, all giving one the sense of motion suddenly arrested, and of light and colour captured from the rainbow and sleeping here in the darkness, waiting year after year for our lamp to awaken it to life and beauty. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO GREAT CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR. _Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._] [Illustration: LARGEST CHAMBER IN SOMERSET, LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE. _From Sketch by H. E. Balch._] The cylinder of oxygen and the ether saturator were pushed out as far as we dared, and the camera was set up on the edge of the platform, to secure at least a glimpse of this hall of wonders. We were told what lay beyond. Another gallery, begemmed as richly as the one behind us, leads on and on, until a high chamber is reached, into which water pours over a sheet of snowy stalagmite, 60 feet high. We could not descend into the Great Chamber, but we intended to light it up. A tinful of Bengal fire was put into an iron saucer, hanging from a string by iron wires; and this with a light attached was lowered through the hole in the platform, whereon we lay extended at full length looking over into the gulf. There was a fizz, and then the fierce radiance swept from side to side of the huge vault, staining the sheets and curtains and cascades of white a splendid crimson. The walls sparkled blood-red as if set with rubies, and the blue-black sheets of calcite marked by oxide of manganese were empurpled by the glow. We fled before the pungent clouds of smoke that rose into our gallery, back to the Beehive Chamber, leaving that glorious hall once more to solitude and silence.