"You think they lie beneath the earth, Richard?"
"Yes, the heavens above the stars, which are like the golden nails of its floor; the earth—our scene of conflict beneath; and the depths below for those who fail and reject their salvation," said Meinhold, replying for the younger boy.
"Then the burning mountains of which we have heard are the portals of hell?"
"So it is commonly supposed," said the hermit. The reader will laugh at his simple cosmogony: he had no idea, poor man, that the earth is round.
"Please let me explore these caves," said Evroult.
"Art thou not afraid?" said Meinhold.
"No," said he; "I am never afraid."
"But I fear for thee; there are dark chasms and a black gulf within, and I fear, my child, lest they be tenanted by evil spirits, and that the sounds we hear at night be not all idle winds."
"You once said they were winds."
"Yes, but do winds utter blasphemies?"