On, and still on, up, further up the mountain, through thick pine forests and gigantic clumps of rock the demon guide led his unresisting prey. Breathless, footsore, over the most impassable places the relentless fiend magnetically dragged me after him; at a rate, too, that thoroughly surprised me; until, to my horror, I found myself close to a deep chasm formed in the rock by the late earthquake.
The demon halted, and now speaking for the first time since our walk together, he asked with a malicious smile if I desired any fossils or any gold, observing that all sorts of curiosities were to be found down there. He then made a strange gesture with his hand towards my face, and I suddenly perceived I was under a spell.
I had no memory of anything that had happened up to that time. I bore no malice against my guide; on the contrary, he appeared to me my best friend. He did not even seem any longer ugly in my eyes, and when he asked me if I would descend into the chasm, I replied cheerfully.
"Yes; but how shall we manage it?"
"I have brought a rope on purpose," said my friend.
"Bravo!" said I.
He then began to unwind a long rope from his waist, and adjusted it underneath my shoulders.
I then descended gradually, my companion holding the rope and letting it out by degrees, until I had descended a very considerable distance, when he fastened the other end to a stump. I then began chipping out various geological specimens, and experienced an intense delight in my novel situation.
Soon, however, while busily occupied in extracting a bone of an ichthyosaurus, I was interrupted by a cry of many voices from below.
"Secure the victim! Down with him, down with him! Our feast of blood is at hand."