‘Methinks I smell something too earthly.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The breath of man.’
‘Scent more fatal than the morning air! Away, away!’
In the range of mountains that lead from Olivet to the river Jordan is the great cavern of Genthesma, a mighty excavation formed by the combined and immemorial work of Nature and of Art; for on the high basaltic columns are cut strange characters and unearthly forms,[47] and in many places the natural ornaments have been completed by the hands of the
sculptor into symmetrical entablatures and fanciful capitals, the work, they say, of captive Dives and conquered Afrites for the great king.
It was midnight; the cold full moon showered it brilliancy upon this narrow valley, shut in on all sides by black and barren mountains. A single being stood at the entrance of the cave.
It was Alroy. Desperate and determined, after listening to the spirits in the tomb, he resolved to penetrate the mysteries of Genthesma. He took from his girdle a flint and steel, with which he lighted a torch and then he entered.
The cavern narrowed as he cautiously advanced, and soon he found himself at the head of an evidently artificial gallery. A crowd of bats rushed forward and extinguished his torch [48] He leant down to relight it and in so doing observed that he had trod upon an artificial pavement.
The gallery was of great extent, with a gradual declination [49] Being in a straight line with the mouth of the cavern, the moonlit scene was long visible, but Alroy, on looking round, now perceived that the exterior was shut out by the eminence that he had left behind him. The sides of the gallery were covered with strange and sculptured forms.