Cudjo's Cave Part 55

"But what comes o' de rock?" cried Cudjo; "dat's de question!"

"What becomes of the sugar that dissolves in your coffee?"

"Soaks up, I reckon; so ye can't see it widout it settles."

"Just so with the limestone, Cudjo. It _soaks up_, as you say. And see!--I will show you where a little of it has settled. Notice this long white spear hanging from the roof."

"Dat? Dat ar a stun icicle. Me broke de pint off oncet, but 'pears like it growed agin. Times de water draps from it right smart."

"A good idea--a stone icicle! It grew as an icicle grows downward from the eaves. It was formed by the particles of lime in the water, which have collected there and hardened into what is called _stalact.i.te_.

These curious smooth white folds of stone under it, which look so much like a cus.h.i.+on, were formed by the water as it dropped. This is called _stalagmite_."

"Heap o' dem 'ar sticktights furder 'long hyar," observed Cudjo, anxious to be showing the wonders.

They came into a vast chamber, from the floor of which rose against the darkness columns resembling a grove of petrified forest trees. The flaming torches, raised aloft in the midst of them, revealed, supported by them, a wonderful gothic roof, with cornice, and frieze, and groined arches, like the interior of a cathedral. A very distinct fresco could also be seen, formed by mineral incrustations, on the ceiling and walls.

On a cloudy background could be traced forms of men and beasts, of forests and flowers, armies, castles, and s.h.i.+ps, not sculptured like the figures before described, but designed by the subtile pencil of some sprite, who, Virginia suggested, must have been the subterranean brother of the Frost.

"How wonderful!" she said. "And is it not strange how Nature copies herself, reproducing silently here in the dark the very same forms we find in the world above! Here is a rose, perfect!"

"With petals of pure white gypsum," said Penn.

Whilst they were talking, Cudjo pa.s.sed on. They followed a little distance, then halted. The light of his torch had gone out in the blackness, and the sound of his footsteps had died away. Carl remained with the other torch; and there they stood together, without speaking, in the midst of immense darkness ingulfing their little isle of light, and silence the most intense.

Suddenly they heard a voice far off, singing; then two, then three voices; then a chorus filling the heart of the mountain with a strange spiritual melody. Virginia was enraptured, and Carl amazed.

Penn, who had known what was coming, looked upon them with pride and delight. At length the music, growing faint and fainter, melted and was lost in the mysterious vaults through which it had seemed to wander and soar away.

It was a minute after all was still before either spoke.

"Certainly," Virginia exclaimed, "if I had not heard of a similar effect produced in the Mammoth Cave, I should never have believed that marvellous chorus was sung by a single voice!"

"A single woice!" repeated Carl, incredulous. "There vas more as a dozen woices!"

"Right, Carl!" laughed Penn. "The first was Cudjo's; and all the rest were those, of the nymph Echo and her companions."

They continued their course through the halls of the echoes, and soon came to an arched pa.s.sage, at the entrance of which Penn paused and placed the torch in a niche. A projection of the rock prevented the light from s.h.i.+ning before them, yet their way was softly illumined from beyond, as by a dim phosph.o.r.escence. They advanced, and in a moment their eyes, grown accustomed to the obscurity, came upon a scene of surprising and magical beauty.

"The Grotto of Undine," said Penn.

It was, to all appearances, a nearly spherical concavity, some thirty yards in length, and perhaps twenty in perpendicular diameter. Carl's torch was concealed in the niche, and Cudjo's was nowhere visible; yet the whole interior was luminous with a dim and silvery halo. A narrow corridor ran round the sides, and resembled a dark ring swimming in nebulous light, midway between the upper and nether hemispheres of the wondrous hollow globe. Within this horizontal rim, floor there was none; and they stood upon its brink; and, looking up, they saw the marvellous vault all sparkling with stars and beaming with pale, pendent, taper, crystalline flames, noiseless and still; and, looking down, beheld beneath their feet, and s.h.i.+ning with a yet more soft and dreamy l.u.s.tre, the perfect counterpart of the vault above.

Penn held Virginia upon the verge. A bewildering ecstasy captivated her reason as she gazed. They seemed to be really in the grotto of some nymph who had fled the instant she saw her privacy invaded, or veiled the immortal mystery and loveliness of her charms in some mesh of the glimmering nimbus that baffled and entangled the sight. Save one or two stifled cries of rapture from Virginia and Carl, not a syllable was uttered: perfect stillness prevailed, until Penn said, in a whisper,--

"Wouldst thou like to see the face of Undine? Bend forward. Do not fear: I hold thee!"

By gentle compulsion he induced her to comply. She bent over the brink, and looked down, when, lo! out of the hazy effulgence beneath, emerged a face looking up at her--a face dimly seen, yet full of vague wonder and surprise--a face of unrivalled sweetness and beauty, Penn thought. What did Virginia think?--for it was the reflection of her own.

"O, Penn! how it startled me!"

"But isn't she a Grace? Isn't she loveliness itself?"

"I hope you think so!" she whispered, with arch frankness, a sweet coquettish confidence ravis.h.i.+ng to his soul.

"I do!" And in the privacy of telling her so, his lips just brushed her ear. Did you ever, in whispering some secret trifle, some all-important, heavenly nothing, just brush the dearest little ear in the world with your lips? or, in listening to the syllables of divine nonsense, feel the warm breath and light touch of the magnetic thrilling mouth? Then you know something of what Penn and Virginia experienced for a brief moment in the Grotto of Undine.

Just then a duplicate glow, like a double sunrise, one part above and the other below the horizon, appeared at the farther end of the grotto.

It increased, until they saw come forth from behind an upright rock an upright torch; and at the same time, from behind a suspended rock beneath, an inverted torch. Immediately after two Cudjoes came in sight; one standing erect on the rock above, and the other standing upside down on--or rather under--the rock below.

"Take your torch, Carl," said Penn, "and go around and meet him."

The boy returned to the niche; and presently two Carls, with two torches, were seen moving around the rim of the corridor, one upright above, the other walking miraculously, head downwards, below.

The two Carls had not reached the rock, when the two Cudjoes stooped, and took up each a stone and threw them. One fell _upward_ (so to speak), as the other fell downward: they met in the centre: there was a strange clash, which echoed through the hollow halls; and in a moment the entire nether hemisphere of the enchanted grotto was shattered into numberless flas.h.i.+ng and undulating fragments.

Virginia had already perceived that the appearance of a concave sphere was an illusion produced by the ceiling lighted by Cudjo's hidden torch, and mirrored in a floor of gla.s.sy water. Yet she was entirely unprepared for this astonis.h.i.+ng result; and at sight of the Cudjo beneath instantaneously annihilated by the plas.h.i.+ng of a stone, she started back with a scream. Fortunately, Penn still held her close, no doubt in a fit of abstraction, forgetting that his arms were no longer necessary to prevent her falling, as when she leaned to look at the shadowy Undine.

"All those stalact.i.tes," said he, as the two torches were held towards the roof, "are of the most beautiful crystalline structure; and the s.p.a.ces between are all studded with brilliant spars. The first time I was here, it was April; the mountain springs were full, and every one of these _stone icicles_ was dripping with water that percolated through the strata above. The effect was almost as surprising as what we saw before Cudjo cast the stone. The surface of the pool seemed all leaping and alive with perpetual showers of dancing pearls. But now the springs are low, or the water has found another channel. Yet this basin is always full."

"Why, so it is! I had no idea the water was so near!" And Virginia, stooping, dipped her hand.

The mirrored crystals were still coruscating and waving in the ripples, as they pa.s.sed around the rim of rock, and followed Cudjo into a scarcely less beautiful chamber beyond.

Here was no water; but in its place was a floor of alabaster, from which arose a great variety of pure white stalagmites, to meet each its twin stalact.i.te pendent from above. In some cases they did actually meet and grow together in perfect pillars, reaching from floor to roof.

"The stalagmites are very beautiful," said Virginia; "but the stalact.i.tes are still more beautiful."

"I think," said Penn, "there is a moral truth symbolized by them. As the rock above gives forth its streaming life, it benefits and beautifies the rock below, while at the same time it adorns still more richly its own beautiful breast. So it always is with Charity: it blesses him that receives, but it blesses far more richly him that gives."

"O, must we pa.s.s on?" said Virginia, casting longing eyes towards all those lovely forms.

"We are to return the same way," replied Penn. "But now Cudjo seems to be in a hurry."

"Dat's de last ob de sticktights," cried the black, standing at the end of the colonnade, and waving his torch above his head. "Now we's comin'

to de run."

"Come," said Penn, "and I will show thee what Hood must have meant by the 'dark arch of the black flowing river.'"

A stupendous cavern of seemingly endless extent opened before them.

Cudjo ran on ahead, shouting wildly under the hollow, reverberating dome, and waving his torch, which soon appeared far off, like a flaming star amid a night of darkness. Then there were two stars, which separated, and, standing one above the other, remained stationary.

"Listen!" said Penn. And they heard the liquid murmur of flowing water.

He took the torch from Carl, and advancing towards the right wall of the cavern, showed, flowing out of it, through a black, arched opening, a river of inky blackness. It rolled, with scarce a ripple, slow, and solemn, and still, out of that impenetrable mystery, and swept along between the wall on one side and a rocky bank on the other. By this bank they followed it, until they came to a natural bridge, formed by a limestone cliff, through which it had worn its channel, and under which it disappeared. On this bridge they found Cudjo perched above the water with his torch.

They pa.s.sed the bridge without crossing,--for the farther end ab.u.t.ted high upon the cavern wall,--and found the river again flowing out on the lower side. Few words were spoken. The vastness of the cave, the darkness, the mystery, the inky and solemn stream pursuing its noiseless course, impressed them all. Suddenly Virginia exclaimed,--

"Light ahead!" though Carl was with her, and Cudjo now walked behind.