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Speaker 1: A voice from the pit by Bernard Edward Capes sineor

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we're arrived, whispered the old man in my ear, and

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he put out a sudden, cold hand, corded like melon rind,

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to stay me in the stumbling darkness. We were on

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a tilted table land of the mountain, and looking forth

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and below, the far and ego crescent of the bay,

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where it swept towards Castle Mare, seemed to rise up

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at me as if it were a perpendicular wall, across

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which white crests of the waves flew like ghost moths.

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We skirted a boulder and came upon a field of sleek,

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purple lava, sewn all over with little lemon jets of

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silent smoke, which, in their van and melancholy glow, might

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have been the corpse lights of those innumerable dead, whose

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tomstone was the mountain itself. Far away to the right,

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the great projecting socket of the crater flickered intermittently with

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a nerve of fire. It was like the glint of

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the watchful eye of some vast Crusatusin and in the

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harsh and stupendous desolation, seemed the final crown and expression

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of utter inhumanity. I started upon hearing the low whisper

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of my companion at my ear in the bay yesterday

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the sieor saved my life. I give the signor in

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return my life's secret. He seized my right hand in

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his lift with a sinewy clutch, and pointed a stiff

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finger at the luminous blots. See there, and there and

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there He shrilled. One floats and wavers like a spineless

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ribbon of seaweed in the water. Another burns with a

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steady radiance. A third blaze from its fissure, like a

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flame driven by the bluepipe. It is all a question

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of the undertrot. And some may feel it a little,

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and some a little more or a little less. Ah.

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But I will show you one that feels it not

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at all. A hole, a narrow shaft that goes to

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down into the pit of the great hill, and as

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cold as the mouth of a barbell. The bones of

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his face stood out like rocks against sand, and the

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pupils of his maniac eyes were glazed or fell into

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shadow as the volcano lightnings fluttered. Suddenly he drew me

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to a broken pile of sulfur rock, lying tumbled against

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a ridge of the mountain that ran towards the crater.

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It lay heaped, affused and fantastic ruin, and in a

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moment that old man leapt from me and was stugging

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by main strength a vast fragment from its place. I

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leaned over his shoulder and looked down upon the hollow

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revealed by the displaced boulder. It was like the bell

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of a mighty trumpet, and in the middle a puckered

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opening seemed to suck inwards, as it were the mouth

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of some subterranean monster risen to the surface of the

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world for air. Quick, quick, muttered Polo, the signor must

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place his ear to the hole with a little lod

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stir at my heart. I dropped upon my knees and

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leaned my head deep into the cup. I must have

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stayed thus for a full minute before I drew myself

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back and looked up at the old mountaineer. His eyes

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gazed down into mine with mad intensity. Sir, Sir, he whispered,

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what didst thou hear? I heard a long surging thunder

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pollo and the deep shrill screaming of many gas jets.

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He penned down with livid face, Signor it is the

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booming of the everlasting fire, and thou hast heard the

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voices of the damned. No, my friend, No, but it

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is a marvelous transmission of the uproar of hidden forces.

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He leaped to the shallow pit. Listen and believe, he cried,

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and faneling his hands about his lips. He stooped over

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the central hole. Marco, Marco. He screeched in a piercing voice.

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Something answered back, What was it? A malforondin twisted echo,

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a whistle of imprisoned steam, tricked into some horrible caricature

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of a human voice. Paullo. It seemed to wail, weak

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and faint with agony. Liquera, liquera, Pollo. The old man

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sprang to his feet, and looking down upon me in

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a sort of terrible triumph, and slung a water flask

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from his belt, and, pulling out the cock, poured the

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cold liquid down into the puckered orifice. Then I felt

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his clutch on my arm again. He drinks. He cried, Listen,

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and thou wilt understand. I rose with the ghost of

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a laugh, and once more addressed my ear to the

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opening from unthinkable depths. Came up a strange, gloating sound,

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as from a ravenous throat made vibrant with ecstasy. Paulo,

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I cried as I rose and stood before him, And

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there was an admonitory note in my voice. Oer feather

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may decide the balance, Beware meddling with hidden thunders, or

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thou mayst set rolling such another tombstone as that on

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which these corpse fires are yet flaming. And he only

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answered me, set and deadly oe of the mountain, senor

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no more things than we may tell of end off

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A voice from the pit