They came at last to a cavern with a wide entrance. The daylight shone far inside. The water was blue far into the depths, not purple or black as it seemed to be just inside the narrower caves. The Queen signed to Kalliope. The boat turned, slipped into the wide entrance, rose and fell upon the swelling water under the high roof. Kalliope rowed on. For awhile she rowed with her oars full stretch on their rowlocks. Then the walls narrowed more and more till she must ship her oars. The boat glided on slowly from the impulse of her last stroke. The walls narrowed still. Kalliope stood up. Pushing against one wall and then the other with an oar grasped midway in her hands she drove the boat forward. Suddenly the space widened. The roof was higher, almost out of sight. The boat passed into a huge cavern very dimly lit. The Queen gasped, sat open-mouthed in breathless silence for a moment; then looking round she saw that the cavern was lit by several thin shafts of pale-blue light. More than one of the caves whose entrance the boat had passed led into this great cavern. Kalliope, laughing, plunged an oar into the waters. It shone silver like some long fish. The Queen gazed at it. She plunged her own arm in and saw it turn silver too.
The water was still deep and seemed scarcely to shallow at all as the boat moved forward into the depths of the cavern. Suddenly the Queen saw before her a steep beach covered with large, round stones. The boat grounded. Kalliope leaped on shore. She held her hand out to the Queen. The two girls stood together on the beach. Kalliope, still holding her Queen's hand, led the way upwards, away from the boat and the water. Her bare feet moved lightly over the stones which shifted and rolled under the Queen's shoes, making a hollow sound. Echoes multiplied the sound until the air was full of hollow mutterings, like the smothered reports of very distant guns. Kalliope led on. To her the way was familiar. The dim light and hollow noises were commonplace. At last she stopped and with a little cry pointed forward.
The Queen looked. Her eyes were well accustomed now to the dim light. She saw.
There in the depths of the mysterious cavern, it would not have surprised the girl to see strange things. She would scarcely have been astonished if Kalliope had pointed to a group of mermaids combing damp hair with long curved shells. Old Triton with his wreathed horn would have been in place, almost an expected vision, if he had sat on a throne of rock, sea carved, with panting dolphins at his feet. The Queen saw no such beings. What she did see called from her a little cry of surprise, made her cling suddenly to Kalliope's arm.
