It was illumined by a strange, flickering, red light, and a purple mist pervaded the atmosphere.
Full of curiosity, our friends followed their conductors until they came to a broad roadway, that certainly looked as though it had been built with human hands.
Along this, for perhaps a quarter of a mile, they went, and then they saw that it suddenly shot downward at an angle of forty-five degrees.
As they rounded a cleft of rock, Andrew Jones came to a halt, and, pointing downward, exclaimed:
“Look there! Did you ever see anything to beat that?”
The swamp explorers followed the direction his finger pointed, and beheld a truly marvelous sight.
Beneath them was a rift of many feet in length, and in the sides, at irregular intervals, were small apertures resembling the portholes of a war ship, through which, ever and anon, came puffs of flame and smoke.
To look at the scene in a certain way, one could almost imagine that a pair of immense ironclads were engaged in battle.
But no noise, beyond a fizzing sound, could be heard when the puffs came.