'They appear so to you,' said the Bohemian, looking back. 'These, however, are but small affairs. We are now only in the suburbs. In the city you will see rocks worth talking about.'
'Heaven take pity on us!' sighed Faith, wandering on until she came to an open space. Here towered up, solitary and frightful, a single monstrous gray rock, formed like an inverted cone with its base stretching high up into the clouds and its apex imbedded in a lake of ice.
'Do not go so near, Oswald,' said Faith. 'This large rock must in the next moment tumble over.'
'Fear it not,' said the Bohemian. 'This is the Sugarloaf, which has been standing thus upon its head for thousands of years, and will surely retain its position long after we are in our graves.'
They were still advancing, when Faith, who was somewhat ashamed to exhibit her fears to the Bohemian, whispered to Oswald, 'only see that horrible gray giant's head projecting over us from between those high towers. I can plainly discern a monstrous, solemn looking face, surrounded by flowing gray locks.'
'That is the burgomaster,' said the laughing Bohemian, who well understood the whisper. 'So is this sport of nature called, and it is the most beautiful of any here. You need not fear him, for he is the only burgomaster on earth who never troubled any one.'
They continued to proceed farther and farther, until at length they were interrupted by a purling mountain stream. Beyond it, stood a broad mass of stone. The Bohemian leaped across the rivulet, rattling down a quantity of loose stones behind him, and with the humming operation of some wheel-work, the heavy stone moved slowly aside, and discovered a low, narrow opening.
'Do we enter there?' asked Faith in a tone so disconsolate as to call forth a hearty laugh from all the Bohemians. Even Oswald joined in the laugh, and, clasping the maiden in his arms, he sprung with her to the opposite bank. They all now stood within a narrow passage, the wheel-work again moved, the entrance closed, and they were enveloped in darkness.
'It is very dark here!' cried Faith.
'We shall soon come into the light,' said their leader, advancing. The others followed, and they thus proceeded in a narrow path, floored with yielding planks, and bounded by high perpendicular walls of dark gray stone, between which was seen the dark blue sky--so dark indeed, that they could almost distinguish the stars in broad day-light. The trickling water glistened upon the walls like silver threads upon a black velvet ground; and here and there little waterfalls, forming dazzling crystals with their congealing spray, bounded down the rocks and disappeared under the planks upon which they were walking.