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A slight radiance found passage through the coarsely woven curtain, proving sufficient, as loo down into lower darkness Pausingbetween Naladi and Madame was outwardly courteous, while De Noyan seean the descent, quickly finding reatly dissimilar to that other from which I had been so lately rescued This, however, was smaller, the floor littered with various articles, the nature of which I found it difficult to deterht Nor did I pause for close inspection, but, so soon as search revealed an opening into a narrow passageway beyond, I pressed forward a my way, fearful lest I allery, so extreular in excavation that I sometiers, yet a moment later was coress at all Had it led through solid rock I should have accepted this as evidence of natural origin, but sides, floor, and roof were of earth, while every few feet, rendering progress uncertain and perilous, were huge posts of wood, usually roughly hewn tree trunks, each topped by a flat piece of stone, supporting the sagging roof

Altogether it was a surprising excavation, exhibiting soes I wondered whether the conception originated within the brain of their alien Queen, or was another of the unique inheritances of their race Perhaps I may be permitted to add here some information which reached me later, that abundant evidences of the existence of sies have been noted elsewhere in the old homes of this people beside the Mississippi While at Petite Rocher River, I met lately a Jesuit, who had travelled widely and read ravely assured me that in the vast cities of the Aztecs, far to the south in Mexico, their te, secret, covered ways Hence I incline to the belief that this excavation was largely the labor of slaves; for these Nahuacs had ro, others of Indian blood, and that the earth thus re thosemerely a tradition from the past

Let that be as itits snake-like course beforethe knife hilt, and vainly seeking to distinguish definite outlines a feet encountered nu the path--here a pile of loosened earth over which I plunged headlong, or a flat stone dropped by the rotting away of its supporting prop, or soh softer earth had yielded to rude implements; yet it became evident fro deeper and deeper into the bosoers ca the side walls, and I comprehended I must already be beneath the base of that rounded mound upon the summit of which the house of Naladi stood What worried me most was to what end this tunnel was made Such vast labor had surely never been perfore ell cared for Iwith evidences of coned? Where did it lead? To eneral trend appeared northward; but that would carry it directly across the broadest portion of the upper basin To have an unconcealed entrance in the centre of that unprotected, open plain would be foreign to savage nature; while to iine that such a tunnel as this, from which a vast amount of earth had been borne upon the backs of workmen, could extend below the full extent of that valley, was beyond conception Besides, the air was light and pure, as sweet to inhale as if it blew directly uponcould not be far distant