So indeed were we all, for I read it in Yva's face and heard Bickley mutter: "Bravo! Splendid! After all there is something in faith!" Even Oro appreciated it with his intellect, if not with his heart, for he stared at the man and made no answer.

In the language of the ring, he was quite "knocked out" and, almost humbly, changed the subject.
"We have yet a little while," he said, "before that happens which I have decreed.

Come, Humphrey, that I may show you some of the marvels of this bubble blown in the bowels of the world," and he motioned to us to pick up the lanterns.
Then he led us away from the wall of the cavern, if such it was, for a distance of perhaps six or seven hundred paces.

Here suddenly we came to a great groove in the rocky floor, as broad as a very wide roadway, and mayhap four feet in depth.

The bottom of this groove was polished and glittered; indeed it gave us the impression of being iron, or other ore which had been welded together beneath the grinding of some immeasurable weight.