On seating ourselves for lunch we found our Irish acquaintance still harping on his mother church. With his mouth half-full of unmasticated edibles, and between veritable Galwegian drafts upon the bottle, he poured forth a rapturous eulogium upon the church of the relics and saints; among other matters arousing Stephen's wonder and incredulity, by relating a history of a lady saint who burnt her face with vitriol, because its angelic beauty had proved deleterous to numerous young gentlemen of tender feelings. "By thunder," said Stephen, "I would not burn my face if all the girls in Kentucky were running after me." McCarlin went on to expound the doctrines of his church, and became momentarily more eloquent the more he ate and drank, as though he had not room for ideas and edibles both, and these last pushed the others out. He was only stopped when on Tom's crying, "See those rats!" he held close beside him an enormous specimen of the rat genus. With one bound he leaped from his seat, suddenly breaking the thread of his argument and nearly doing the same by his scull, while Tom half sung, half said: "What eyes! what teeth! what ears! what hair!. Look at his whiskers - what a pair! And oh! my gentle hearers, what a long, thick swingling tail he's got!" At first Tom had thought the rat was double, self and shadow, but, good reader, the light was dim, and the fourth bottle of champagne had been opened. Upon a stone's being sent at him, our visitor made an instantaneous exit. Though the occurrence had to us been totally unexpected, the guide said it was quite common to encounter the cheese-eaters. He told how a year or two before he had served as guide to a party, that, intending to pass the night and the ensuing day in the cave, had armed themselves with a corresponding supply of nature's necessaries. After eating their supper, and carefully packing away the surplus against the morrow, the lay down upon the dry sand and were soon embalmed in sleep. Next morning on awaking (how they told when it was morning did not appear), they found themselves not only minus all of their provisions, but the handsome smoking-cap of one of their number had also disappeared. The rats had appropriated the whole, and no doubt had a grant feast. For what purpose they took the smoking-cap it is hard to discover, as rats are not given to wearing such vanities or indulging in the noxious weed. Perhaps their king's crown, like those of others just then, was wearing out, and he thought it a new one. These animals are immensely large and voracious, apparently living on the crickets and spiders that inhabit the cave. The crickets are also very corpulent, and of a light, almost white color. They do not usually jump like those of the upper world, but have very long legs, and walk sedately about. We gained this information by the time our dinner was finished. Sundry toasts were then drunk, several songs sung, and our lamps being re-filled with oil, for Stephen was no foolish virgin to be caught in the middle of that cave, without extra oil, we recommenced our journey. Although our path lay over rough rocks, the air at sixty degrees of Fahrenheit, the thermometer never varying in summer or winter more than one degree, was so bracing that we did not feel fatigue, and were in high spirits from the wondrous beauty of all around us. On ascending a crazy ladder through a narrow hole scarce large enough to admit one's body, the guide told us to look up. Above our heads hung great clusters of what appeared to be the most luscious grapes. The giant vine, from far beyond where the eye could reach, hung down in its enchanting festoons. It clung gracefully to the side of the stern rock, and falling off, swept to our very feet. There lay the fruit, in form perfect, before our eyes, half modestly hidden between the leaves. I had fairly to feel them before I could assure myself that it was but the cold stone that had thus fancifully formed itself after the model of one of earth's sweetest productions. It was a painful deception; at that moment there was scarcely a fruit which I moe ardently desired, so strongly had the remembrance of its juicy delicacy been aroused. I feasted my eyes at least upon grape, examining the bunches wehre they were scarcely visible far above, or where they were picturesquely grouped close beside me. It was a tempting sight; in trust, asking for food and receiving a stone. After dragging myself away from this semblance of a feast, I entered what is called the Snow-ball Cave. Stephen illumined it with a Bengal-light. The gypsum had formed over the ceiling in irregular bunches that were a close imitation of old hoary Winter's handiwork. It was a winter scene by moonlight. There lay the hard frozen ground, stretched out uneven and rough, here and there spotted with snow that seemed too cold even to make the urchin's snowball, while the pale coloring from the Bengal light seemed as though shed by the round, full-orbed, silver moon. All looked like one of the coldest nights in January, when the wind is even too tightly bound in the fetters of frost to more than now and then roll over a stray dry leaf. Everything seemed still, but fairly colder from the stillness; frozen into a motionless torpidity. There was needed but the white scraggy limbs of the naked oak, dried and sapless, perhaps thinly covered with snow, to make the representation perfect. To be continued tomorrow. Sandi --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com