University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER III.

Some moments of repose were necessary before
Emily was sufficiently recovered from her agitation to
be able to proceed. The tears filled her eyes as she
briefly but warmly thanked Le Maire for his generous
exertions to save her, and begged his pardon for the foolish
and awkward timidity, as she termed it, which had
put his life as well as her own in such extreme peril.

"I confess," answered he, good-naturedly, "that bad
you been of as solid a composition as some ladies with
whom I have the honour of an acquaintance, Madame
Le Maire here would most certainly have been a
widow. I understood my own strength, however,"
added he, for on this point he was somewhat vain,
"and if I had not, I should still have been willing to risk
something rather than to lose you. But I will take
care, Emily, that you do not lead me into another scrape
of the kind. When we return I shall, by your leave,
take you in my arms and carry you over the chasm,
and you may shut your eyes while I do it, if you
please."

They now again set out, and in a few moments arrived
at the mouth of the cavern they had come to visit. A

projecting mass of rock impended over it, so low as not
to allow in front an entrance to a person standing upright,
but on each side it receded upwards in such a
manner as to leave two high narrow openings, giving
it the appearance of being suspended from the cavern
roof. Beneath it the floor, which was a continuation of
the terrace leading to the spot, was covered, in places,
to a considerable depth, with soil formed by the disintegration
of the neighbouring rocks, and traversed by
several fissures nearly filled with earth. As they entered
by one of the narrow side openings, Emily looked
up to the crag with a slight shudder. "If it should
fall!" thought she to herself; but a feeling of shame at
the idle fear she had lately manifested restrained her
from giving utterance to the thought. The good ecclesiastic
perceived what was passing in her mind, and
said, with a smile—

"There is no danger, my child; that rock has been
suspended over the entrance for centuries, for thousands
of years perhaps, and is not likely to fall today.
Ages must have elapsed before the crags could
have crumbled to form the soil now under our feet.
It is true that there is no place sacred from the intrusion
of accident; everywhere may unforeseen events
surprise and crush us, as the foot of man surprises and
crushes the insect in his path; but to suppose peculiar
danger in a place which has known no change for hundreds
of years is to distrust Providence. Come, Le
Maire," said Father Ambrose, "will you oblige us by
striking a light? Our eyes have been too much in the
sunshine to distinguish objects in this dark place."

Le Maire produced from his hunting bag a roll of
tinder, and lighting it with a spark from his rifle, kindled
in a few moments a large pitch-pine torch. The circumstance
which first struck the attention of the party
was the profound and solemn stillness of the place.
The most quiet day has under the open sky its multitude

of sounds—the lapse of waters, the subtle motions
of the apparently slumbering air among forests, grasses,
and rocks, the flight and note of insects, the voices of
animals, the rising of exhalations, the mighty process
of change, of perpetual growth and decay, going on all
over the earth, produce a chorus of noises which the
hearing cannot analyze—which, though it may seem to
you silence, is not so; and when from such a scene
you pass directly into one of the rocky chambers of the
earth, you perceive your error by the contrast. As the
three went forward they passed through a heap of dry
leaves lightly piled, which the winds of the last autumn
had blown into the cave from the summit of the surrounding
forest, and the rustling made by their steps
sounded strangely loud amid that death-like silence.
A spacious cavern presented itself to their sight, the
roof of which near the entrance was low, but several
paces beyond it rose to a great height, where the smoke
of the torch ascending, mingled with the darkness, but
the flame did not reveal the face of the vault.

They soon came to where, as Father Ambrose informed
them, the cave divided into two branches.
"That on the left," said he, "soon becomes a low and
narrow passage among the rocks; this on the right
leads to a large chamber, in which lie the bones from
which the cavern takes its name."

He now took the torch from the hand of Le Maire,
and turning to the right guided his companions to a
lofty and wide apartment of the cave, in one corner of
which he showed them a human skeleton lying extended
on the rocky floor. Some decayed fragments,
apparently of the skins of animals, lay under it in places,
and one small remnant passed over the thighs, but
the bones, though they had acquired from the atmosphere
of the cave a greenish yellow hue, were seemingly
unmouldered. They still retained their original
relative position, and appeared as never disturbed since
the sleep of death came over the frame to which they

once belonged. Emily gazed on the spectacle with
that natural horror which the remains of the dead inspire.
Even Le Maire, with all his vivacity and garrulity,
was silent for a moment.

"Is any thing known of the manner in which this
poor wretch came to his end?" he at length inquired.

"Nothing. The name of Skeleton's Cave was given
to this place by the aborigines; but I believe they have
no tradition concerning these remains. If you look at
the right leg you will perceive that the bone is fractured:
it is most likely the man was wounded on these
very cliffs either by accident or by some enemy, and
that he crawled to this retreat, where he perished from
want of attendance and from famine."

"What a death!" murmured Emily.

The ecclesiastic then directed their attention to another
part of the same chamber, where he said it was
formerly not uncommon for persons benighted in these
parts, particularly hunters, to pass the night. "You
perceive," added he, "that this spot is higher than the
rest of the cavern, and drier also; indeed no part of
the cavern is mach subject to moisture. A bed of
leaves on this rock with a good blanket, is no bad accommodation
for a night's rest, as I can assure you,
having once made the experiment myself many years
since, when I came hither from Europe. Ah, what have
we here? coals, brands, splinters of pitch-pine! The
cave must have been occupied very lately for the purpose
I mentioned, and by people too who, I dare say,
from the preparations they seem to have made, passed
the night very comfortably."

"I dare say they did so, though they had an ugly
bedfellow yonder," answered Le Maire; "but I hope
you do not think of following their example. As you
have shown us, I presume, the principal curiosities of
the cave, I take the liberty of suggesting the propriety
of getting as fast as we can out of this melancholy

place, which has already put me out of spirits. That
poor wretch who died of famine!—I shall never get
him out of my head till I am fairly set down to dinner.
Not that I care more for my dinner than any other man
when there is any thing of importance in the way, as,
for example, a buffalo, or a fat buck, or a bear to be
killed; but you will allow, Father Ambrose, that a
saddle of venison, or a hump of buffalo and a sober
bottle of claret are a prettier spectacle, particularly at
this time of day, than that mouldy skeleton yonder. I
had intended to shoot something in my way back just
to keep my hand and eye in practice, but it is quite too
late to think of that. Besides, here is Emily, poor
thing, whom we have contrived to get up to this place,
and whom we must manage to get down again as well
as we can."

The good priest, though by no means participating
in Le Maire's haste to be gone, mildly yielded to his
instances, particularly as they were seconded by Emily,
and they accordingly prepared to return. On reaching
the mouth of the cave, they were struck with the change
in the aspect of the heavens. Dark heavy clouds, the
round summits of which were seen one beyond the
other, were rapidly rising in the west; and through
the grayish blue haze which suffused the sky before
them, the sun appeared already shorn of his beams.
A sound was heard afar of mighty winds contending
with the forest, and the thunder rolled at a distance.

"We must stay at least until the storm is over," said
Father Ambrose; "it would be upon us before we
could descend these cliffs. Let us watch it from where
we stand above the tops of these old woods: I can
promise you it will be a magnificent spectacle."

Emily, though she would gladly have left the cave,
could say nothing against the propriety of this advice;
and even Le Maire, notwithstanding that he declared
he had rather see a well-loaded table at that moment

than all the storms that ever blew, preferred remaining
to the manifest inconvenience of attempting a descent.
In a few moments the dark array of clouds swept over
the face of the sun, and a tumult in the woods announced
the coming of the blast. The summits of the
forest waved and stooped before it, like a field of young
flax in the summer breeze,—another and fiercer gust
descended,—another and stronger convulsion of the
forest ensued. The trees rocked backward and forward,
leaned and rose, and tossed and swung their
branches in every direction, and the whirling air above
them was filled with their leafy spoils. The roar was
tremendous,—the noise of the ocean in a tempest is
not louder,—it seemed as if that innumerable multitude
of giants of the wood, raised a universal voice of
wailing under the fury that smote and tormented them.
At length the rain began to fall, first in large and rare
drops, and then the thunder burst over head, and the
waters of the firmament poured down in torrents, and
the blast that howled in the woods fled before them as
if from an element that it feared. The trees again
stood erect, and nothing was heard but the rain beating
heavily on the immense canopy of leaves around, and
the occasional crashings of the thunder, accompanied
by flashes of lightning, that threw a vivid light upon
the walls of the cavern. The priest and his companions
stood contemplating this scene in silence, when a rushing
of water close at hand was heard. Father Ambrose
showed the others where a stream, formed from
the rains collected on the highlands above, descended
on the crag that overhung the mouth of the cavern,
and shooting clear of the rocks on which they stood,
fell in spray to the broken fragments at the base of the
precipice.

A gust of wind drove the rain into the opening where
they stood, and obliged them to retire farther within.
The priest suggested that they should take this opportunity

to examine that part of the cave which in going to
the skeleton's chamber they had passed on their left, observing,
however, that he believed it was no otherwise
remarkable than for its narrowness and its length. Le
Maire and Emily assented, and the former taking up the
torch which he had stuck in the ground, they went back
into the interior. They had just reached the spot where
the two passages diverged from each other, when a
hideous and intense glare of light filled the cavern,
showing for an instant the walls, the roof, the floor,
and every crag and recess, with the distinctness of the
broadest sunshine. A frightful crash accompanied it,
consisting of several sharp and deafening explosions,
as if the very heart of the mountain was rent asunder
by the lightning, and immediately after a body of immense
weight seemed to fall at their very feet with a
heavy sound, and a shock that caused the place where
they stood to tremble as if shaken by an earthquake.
A strong blast of air rushed by them, and a suffocating
odour filled the cavern.

Father Ambrose had fallen upon his knees in mental
prayer, at the explosion; but the blast from the mouth
of the cavern threw him to the earth. He raised himself,
however, immediately, and found himself in utter
silence and darkness, save that a livid image of that
insufferable glare floated yet before his eyeballs. He
called first upon Emily, who did not answer, then upon
Le Maire, who replied from the ground a few paces
nearer the entrance of the cave. He also had been
thrown prostrate, and the torch he carried was extinguished.
It was but the work of an instant to kindle
it again, and they then discovered Emily extended near
them in a swoon.

"Let us bear her to the mouth of the cavern," said
Le Maire; "the fresh air from without will revive her."
He took her in his arms, but on arriving at the spot he
placed her suddenly on the ground, and raising both

hands, exclaimed, with an accent of despair, "The rock
is fallen!—the entrance is closed!"

It was but too evident,—Father Ambrose needed but
a single look to convince him of its truth,—the huge
rock which impended over the entrance had been loosened
by the thunderbolt, and had fallen upon the floor
of the cave, closing all return to the outer world.