Below, in the little chamber, we had only heard the roaring of the
gale overhead--here, lying on our faces on the swinging stone, we were
exposed to its full force and fury, as the great draught drew first from
this direction and then from that, howling against the mighty precipice
and through the rocky cliffs like ten thousand despairing souls. We lay
there hour after hour in terror and misery of mind so deep that I will
not attempt to describe it, and listened to the wild storm-voices
of that Tartarus, as, set to the deep undertone of the spur opposite
against which the wind hummed like some awful harp, they called to each
other from precipice to precipice. No nightmare dreamed by man, no wild
invention of the romancer, can ever equal the living horror of that
place, and the weird crying of those voices of the night, as we clung
like shipwrecked mariners to a raft, and tossed on the black, unfathomed
wilderness of air. Fortunately the temperature was not a low one;
indeed, the wind was warm, or we should have perished.
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