The church was not quite as dark as the staircase and passages had been, and Unorna stood still for a moment.

In some of the chapels hanging lamps of silver were lighted, and their tiny flames spread a faint radiance upwards and sideways, though not downwards, sufficient to break the total obscurity to eyes accustomed for some minutes to no light at all.

The church stood, too, on a little eminence in the city, where the air without was less murky and impenetrable with the night mists, and though there was no moon the high upper windows of the nave were distinctly visible in the gloomy height like great lancet-shaped patches of gray upon a black ground.
In the dimness, all objects took vast and mysterious proportions.

A huge giant reared his height against one of the pillars, crowned with a high, pointed crown, stretching out one great shadowy hand into the gloom--the tall pulpit was there, as Unorna knew, and the hand was the wooden crucifix standing out in its extended socket.

The black confessionals, too, took shape, like monster nuns, kneeling in their heavy hoods and veils, with heads inclined, behind the fluted pilasters, just within the circle of the feeble chapel lights.