No bright-winged sunbeam could fall so low: they died far, far above our heads.
By the river's edge was a little shore formed of round fragments of rock washed into this shape by the constant action of water, and giving the place the appearance of being strewn with thousands of fossil cannon balls.

Evidently when the water of the underground river is high there is no beach at all, or very little, between the border of the stream and the precipitous cliffs; but now there was a space of seven or eight yards.

And here, on this beach, we determined to land, in order to rest ourselves a little after all that we had gone through and to stretch our limbs.
It was a dreadful place, but it would give an hour's respite from the terrors of the river, and also allow of our repacking and arranging the canoe.

Accordingly we selected what looked like a favourable spot, and with some little difficulty managed to beach the canoe and scramble out on to the round, inhospitable pebbles.
'My word,' called out Good, who was on shore the first, 'what an awful place! It's enough to give one a fit.' And he laughed.
Instantly a thundering voice took up his words, magnifying them a hundred times.

'_Give one a fit -- Ho! ho! ho!' -- 'A fit, Ho! ho! ho!_' answered another voice in wild accents from far up the cliff -- _a fit! a fit! a fit!_ chimed in voice after voice -- each flinging the words to and fro with shouts of awful laughter to the invisible lips of the other till the whole place echoed with the words and with shrieks of fiendish merriment, which at last ceased as suddenly as they had begun.
'Oh, mon Dieu!' yelled Alphonse, startled quite out of such self-command as he possessed.
'_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_' the Titanic echoes thundered, shrieked, and wailed in every conceivable tone.
'Ah,' said Umslopogaas calmly, 'I clearly perceive that devils live here.