When first I had looked upon the place I had sensed its immensity; now I began to realize how vast it must really be--for already the gateway through which we had come glimmered far away on high, shrunk to a hoop of incandescent brass and dwindling fast.
Nor was it a cavern; I saw the stars, traced with deep relief the familiar Northern constellations.

Pit it might be, but whatever terror, whatever ordeals were before us, we would not have to face them buried deep within earth.

There was a curious comfort to me in the thought.
Suddenly stars and sky were blotted out.
We had plunged beneath the surface of the radiant sea.
Lying in the position in which I was, I was sensible of a diminution of the cyclonic force; the blast streamed up and over the front of the cube.

To me drifted only the wailings of our flight and the whimpering terror of the pony.
I turned my head cautiously.

Upon the very edge of the flying blocks squatted Drake and Ventnor, grotesquely frog-like.