284 The Arch-Druid : [SEPT, 



mass of loose stones and rocks above ; and, in a third, to wind round 

 the brow of a precipice, where one false step would have hurled them 

 headlong into the black abyss that yawned a hundred fathoms below. 

 A brisk, keen wind, which came roaring through the hollow clefts of 

 the mountains, added not a little to their danger ; for at one moment all 

 would be hushed and still, and the next, a blast would rush upon them 

 with the force of an avalanche, bearing down with it in its progress 

 confused heaps of clay and stone, and blocks of wood. Altogether, the 

 route, though of no great moment or hazard perhaps to experienced 

 mountaineers like the Silures, yet to such a novice as Sergius, whose 

 campaigns, previous to those in West Britain, had been chiefly restricted 

 to the flat marshy provinces of Belgium, teemed with difficulty, if not 

 absolute danger. 



They had continued the ascent for upwards of an hour, when Man- 

 lius, overcome with excessive fatigue, was obliged reluctantly to make 

 a halt. For the first time since they quitted the plain, Sergius now 

 addressed him. <e Where are you leading me to ? Tell me at once, and 

 without reserve^ or I will go no further." 



" Have a moment's patience," replied the youth, drawing his breath 

 with difficulty ; " the fatigues of this day have so exhausted me that I 

 can hardly speak." Then, in a subdued tone, rendered tremulous by 

 extreme weariness, " I am searching for a cave which I passed last 

 night in a gorge of these mountains. The mouth is so effectually con- 

 cealed by underwood, that it will afford us secure shelter till day-break, 

 when we can rejoin the remains of our army." 



A long sigh from Sergius was the sole reply to this explanation. The 

 allusion to his shattered troops had gathered again those clouding 

 thoughts which the excitement of the walk had in part dispelled ; 

 and as he sat with folded arms on a fragment of rock that jutted 

 out into the pass from the black wall of precipice above him, he might 

 have been mistaken for one of those weird spirits with which the wild 

 fancies of the Britons loved to people their native mountains. 



After half an hour's delay, during which Manlius vainly strove to 

 compose himself to sleep, " Let us hasten on," he said, rising, but not 

 without an effort, from his seat ; " the cave cannot be far distant ; and 

 if we sit loitering longer on this crag, the wind will chill our limbs. so, 

 that we shall not be able to stir." 



Again the travellers set forward on their route, guided by the light of 

 the risen moon, which, struggling through a grey pall of ragged and 

 spongy clouds, threw strange fitful gleams upon the landscape. They 

 had now gained the highest accessible point of the pass, whence an 

 almost endless expanse of prospect lay stretched before and behind 

 them. The moon, which for a few moments stood unclouded in the 

 sky, enabled them to look back on the road which they had just tra- 

 versed. It ran along the edge of an abrupt, thunder-splintered preci- 

 pice. A billowy sea of mountains lay below it, some robed in mist, 

 some lifting high their grey naked heads into the air, and some robed 

 to the very summit with forest pines, Beyond where the mountains 

 sloped towards level ground, slept in peaceful loveliness the silent plain 

 of Carrick-Sawthy. Sergius knew it at a glance : it was the fatal scene 

 of his morning's encounter. Shuddering, he averted his head, and 

 passed on, listening with far more congenial feelings to the sepulchral 

 voice of the wind, which at intervals bore to his ear the howl of the 



