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I explained to them that, under certain circumstances, carbonic acid gas was frequently accumulated in caves or grottoes, rendering the air unfit for respiration; producing giddiness of the head, fainting, and eventually death. I sent them to collect some hay, which I lighted and threw into the cave; this was immediately extinguished; we repeated the experiment several times with the same result.
It does not speak, it flows along without a sound; and this eternal motion of flowing water is more terrible to me than the high waves of the ocean. Dreamers maintain that the sea hides in its bosom vast tracts of blue where those who are drowned roam among the big fishes, amid strange forests and crystal grottoes. The river has only black depths where one rots in the slime.
Imitations of rock form have, for the most part, been confined to periods of degraded feeling and to architectural toys or pieces of dramatic effect, the Calvaries and holy sepulchres of Romanism, or the grottoes and fountains of English gardens.
Like a blue flood the marvelous cone-like trees, interwoven with silvery lichens, stretched upward. Waterfalls as if suspended from the rocky crags, scattered in a smoke-like spray. And suddenly the heavenly flocks sent forth their bleating toward God, and the ecstatic bells wept for the shadow of the ferns. And the dark water of the grottoes broke in the light.
If Brigitte was imprudent, was it not my place to be cautious and ward off danger? On the contrary, I took, so to speak, the part of the world against her. I began by indifference; I was soon to grow malignant. "It is true," I said, "that they speak evil of your nocturnal excursions. Are you sure that they are wrong? Has nothing happened in those romantic grottoes and by-paths in the forest?
Initiated people, who had travelled in Europe, said it put them in mind of the "Jardin Mabille;" and those who had not were reminded of some of the wonders of "The Black Crook." There were apartments turned into bowers and grottoes, where the gas-light shimmered behind veils of falling water, and through pendant leaves of all sorts of strange water-plants of tropical regions.
"Are you there, Yves?" said the bishop. "Yes, monseigneur; Goenne is here likewise. His son accompanies us." "That is well. Are all things ready?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Go to the entrance of the grottoes, my good Yves, and you will there find the Seigneur de Pierrefonds, who is resting after the fatigue of our journey.
I had received a lesson not to trust to appearances, and was now very unwilling to take up my lodgings in any one of the curious grottoes which lay scattered about in the valley. They might be perfectly quiet, and afford me comfortable shelter; or, proving treacherous, a stream of hot water might burst forth from some unperceived vent and blow me fifty feet into the air, or scald me to death.
It would be interesting to trace the course of some of these underground rivers; for a torrent of water such as this cannot flow down through the soft rock without in the course of thousands of years, producing caves and grottoes and underground galleries and all the wonders of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, with its stalactite pillars and fairy avenues and domes though the Cotswold caves are naturally on a much smaller scale.
Each one of these held a little grass-plot, or green divan, and these were so arranged that the branches of the palms were bent down over the seats, and concealed those who rested there behind a leafy screen. To one of these grottoes Louise now led her husband. "We will rest here awhile," said she.
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