What should he do if they never came
back? How would he ever find his way out of these caverns? The thought
was frightful, and to relieve his fears he began to call. His calls
became shouts, yells, and yet no answer came; nothing but echoes
responded.
CHAPTER VIII
After a long and impatient listening the echoes of Leo's calls seemed to
prolong themselves into musical strains, which, faint and far away at
first, gradually came nearer and nearer.
Soft as the sighing of the wind was this elfin music, but swelling into
mimic bursts of harmony and clashing of small cymbals.
Leo leaned over the balustrade of the corridor, and gazed down into the
depths of a cavernous abyss. Instantly the space seemed filled with
sprites in every conceivable attire. Some were dressed in the
party-colored habits of court pages, some in royal robes of ermine,
others as shepherds with crooks, and again others as cherubs with gauzy
wings; but all were whirling like snow-flakes to the strains of the
music.
Leo looked in vain for Paz or Knops. Indeed, so many were the fantastic
forms, and so rapidly did they move, that it was like watching a
snow-storm, and this effect was heightened by misty wreaths, upon which
were borne aloft the more radiant members, who danced and flashed as
heat-lightning on the clouds of a summer's night.
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