They had a dim consciousness,
too, of the presence, in those awful regions, of beings whom they could
not comprehend. Once they came upon the brink of a great black gulf, in
which the eye could see nothing but darkness: they recoiled with horror;
for the conviction flashed upon them that that gulf went down into the
very central spaces of the earth, of which they had hitherto been
wandering only in the upper crust; nay, that the seething blackness before
them had relations mysterious, and beyond human comprehension, with the
far-off voids of space, into which the stars dare not enter.
"At the foot of the cliff whereon the castle stood, lay a deep lake,
inaccessible save by a few avenues, being surrounded on all sides with
precipices which made the water look very black, although it was pure as
the night-sky. From a door in the castle, which was not to be otherwise
entered, a broad flight of steps, cut in the rock, went down to the lake,
and disappeared below its surface. Some thought the steps went to the very
bottom of the water.
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