A weird twilight that did not come from an outer world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and possessed the aisles.

The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like columns of upward smoke.

The few fallen trees stretched their huge length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles.

The strange breath that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture; a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their bark-strewn floor; the aisles might have been tombs, the fallen trees, enormous mummies; the silence, the solitude of the forgotten past.
And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps.

It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate.