The rest of the adventure wonderfully resembled a dream. On returning to consciousness, he found that the gloom around him had given place to a dim red twilight, which flickered along the sides and roof like the reflection of a distant fire. He rose, and grasping his staff staggered forward. “It is sunlight,” thought he, “I shall find an opening among the rocks of Eathie, and return home over the hill.” Instead, however, of the expected outlet, he found the passage terminate in a wonderful apartment, so vast in extent, that though an immense fire of pine-trees, whole and unbroken from root to branch, threw up a red wavering sheet of flame many yards in height, he could see in some places neither the walls nor the roof. A cataract, like that of Foyers during the long-continued rains of an open winter, descended in thunder from one of the sides, and presenting its broad undulating front of foam to the red gleam of the fire, again escaped into darkness through a wide broken-edged gulf at the bottom. The floor of the apartment appeared to be thickly strewed with human bones, half-burned and blood-stained, and gnawed as if by cannibals; and directly in front of the fire there was a low tomblike erection of dark-coloured stone, full twenty yards in length, and roughened with grotesque hieroglyphics, like those of a Runic obelisk. An enormous mace of iron, crusted with rust and blood, reclined against the upper end; while a bugle of gold hung by a chain of the same metal from a column at the bottom. Willie seized the bugle, and winded a blast till the wide apartment shook with the din; the waters of the cataract disappeared, as if arrested at their source; and the ponderous cover of the tomb began to heave and crackle, and pass slowly over the edge, as if assailed by the terrific strength of some newly-awakened giant below. Willie again winded the bugle; the cover heaved upwards, disclosing a corner of the chasm beneath; and a hand covered with blood, and of such fearful magnitude as to resemble only the conceptions of Egyptian sculpture, was slowly stretched from the darkness towards the handle of the mace. Willie’s resolution gave way, and, flinging down the horn, he rushed hurriedly towards the passage. A yell of blended grief and indignation burst from the tomb, as the immense cover again settled over it; the cataract came dashing from its precipice with a heavier volume than before; and a furious hurricane of mingled wind and spray that rushed howling from the interior, well-nigh dashed the adventurer against the sides of the rock. He succeeded, however, in gaining the passage, sick at heart and nearly petrified with terror; a state of imperfect consciousness succeeded, like that of a feverish dream, in which he retained a sort of half conviction that he was lingering in the damps and darkness of the cave, obstinately and yet unwillingly; and, on fully regaining his recollection, he found himself lying across the ninth cistern, with the