Next a ray from the unrisen sun, a single spear of light shot suddenly across the sky, and as it appeared, from the darkness below us arose a sound of chanting, very low and sweet to hear.
It died away and for a little while there was silence broken only by a rustling sound like to that of people taking their seats in a dark theatre.

Then a woman began to sing in a beautiful, contralto voice, but in what language I do not know, for I could not catch the words, if these were words and not only musical notes.
I felt Ragnall trembling beside me and in a whisper asked him what was the matter.

He answered, also in a whisper: "I believe that is my wife's voice." "If so, I beg you to control yourself," I replied.
Now the skies began to flame and the light to pour itself into a misty hollow beneath us like streams of many-coloured gems into a bowl, driving away the shadows.

By degrees these vanished; by degrees we saw everything.

Beneath us was an amphitheatre, on the southern wall of which we were seated, though it was not a wall but a lava cliff between forty and fifty feet high which served as a wall.