A Daughter of Delilah — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

16 IN THE TUNNEL. CHAPTER IT. IN THE TUNNEL. The black mouth of the tunnel yawned before him, and there was a melancholy sound in the wind that gushed from its cavernous depths. On either side the giant rocks piled a hundred feet in the air, their frosted summits gleaming brightly in the starlight. Below everything was black, but the two tracks of shining steel rails that seemed to vanish in the tunnel’s awful abyss, over which rested a million tons of earth. The scene was Dantesque, and though Alston was not blessed, or cursed, with the most vivid imagination, he fancied that a hundred shadowy and grotesque creatures of the evil world were rushing forth to warn him back, only to quickly dissolve in the clear, cold air. | | ) ‘Merely the smoke from the last engine being driven out,’’ he soliloquized, ‘‘and the light playing upon it makes fantastic shadows. The sulphurous odor proves that. Well, here goes!’’ He plunged into the inky darkness, and it seemed that the wind there had redoubled force and keenness. “The right-hand track! Imust remember that,’’ he erowled, after stumbling along for five minutes. ‘At best, this is. a fool-hardy piece of work!’’ He flashed his lantern at the reeking walls, and they glistened dully in the faint light. Now and again would Eomicbooks (E(0) m