"Why not, since the strength of the draught never changes and there is nothing to wear it except the air ?" Somehow the vision of this huge stone, first loosed and set in motion by heaven knows what agency, travelling from aeon to aeon up and down that shaft in obedience to some law I did not understand, impressed my imagination like a nightmare.

Indeed I often dream of it to this day.
I looked about me.

We were in some cavernous place that could be but dimly seen, for here the light that flowed down the shaft from the upper caves where it was mysteriously created, scarcely shone, and often indeed was entirely cut off, when the ever-journeying stone was in the narrowest parts of the passage.

I could see, however, that this cavern stretched away both to right and left of us, while I felt that from the left, as we sat facing the shaft, there drew down a strong blast of fresh air which suggested that somewhere, however far away, it must open on to the upper world.

For the rest its bottom and walls seemed to be smooth as though they had been planed in the past ages by the action of cosmic forces.