A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

37
the surface were but the tiniest cells. I was now being borne on to
these. In that case there might be no sudden plunge, after all. The
stream might run on for many thousand miles through this terrific
cavern gloom, in accordance with natural laws; and I might thus live,
and drift on in this darkness, until I should die a lingering death of
horror and despair.
There was no possible way of forming any estimate as to speed. All was
dark, and even the glow behind was fading away; nor could I make any
conjecture whatever as to the size of the channel. At the opening it
had been contracted and narrow; but here it might have expanded itself
to miles, and its vaulted top might reach almost to the summit of
the lofty mountains. While sight thus failed me, sound was equally
unavailing, for it was always the same--a sustained and unintermittent
roar, a low, droning sound, deep and terrible, with no variations
of dashing breakers or rushing rapids or falling cataracts. Vague
thoughts of final escape came and went; but in such a situation hope
could not be sustained. The thick darkness oppressed the soul; and
at length even the glow of the distant volcanoes, which had been
gradually diminishing, grew dimmer and fainter, and finally faded out
altogether. That seemed to me to be my last sight of earthly things.
After this nothing was left. There was no longer for me such a thing
as sight; there was nothing but darkness--perpetual and eternal night.
I was buried in a cavern of rushing waters, to which there would be no
end, where I should be borne onward helplessly by the resistless tide
to a mysterious and an appalling doom.
The darkness grew so intolerable that I longed for something to dispel
it, if only for a moment. I struck a match. The air was still, and the
flame flashed out, lighting up the boat and showing the black water
around me. This made me eager to see more. I loaded both barrels of
the rifle, keeping my pistol for another purpose, and then fired one
of them. There was a tremendous report, that rang in my ears like a
hundred thunder-volleys, and rolled and reverberated far along, and
died away in endless echoes. The flash lighted up the scene for an
instant, and for an instant only; like the sudden lightning, it
revealed all around. I saw a wide expanse of water, black as ink--a
Stygian pool; but no rocks were visible, and it seemed as though I
had been carried into a subterranean sea.
I loaded the empty barrel and waited. The flash of light had revealed