A spider in conscious security had woven his web
across the archway formed by the drooping festoons of the vine; the
untrodden path was overgrown with moss. Haguna lifted up the vine
and passed under, beckoning Anthrops to follow. He heard her still
singing,--
"Quick unclasp your tendrils clinging,
Stealthily the trees enringing!
I have learnt your wily secret:
I will use it, I shall keep it!
Cunning spider, cease your spinning!
My web boasts the best beginning.
Yours is wan and pale and ashen:
After no such lifeless fashion
Mine is woven. Golden sunbeams
Prisoned in its meshes, light gleams
From its shadowest recesses.
Tell me, spider, made you ever
Web so strong no knife could sever
Woven of a maiden's tresses?"
On the other side of the viny curtain, Anthrops discovered the entrance
to a large cavern hollowed out in a rock. The cavern was carpeted with
the softest moss of the most variegated shades, ranging from faintest
green to a rich golden brown. The rocky walls were of considerable
height, and curved gracefully around the ample space,--a woodland
apartment. But the most remarkable feature in the grotto was a
rose-colored cloud, that seemed to have been imprisoned in the farther
end, and, in its futile efforts to escape, shifted perpetually into
strange, fantastic figures.
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