n long reinstated in his
rights, and by sound of bugle could as formerly assemble his followers
in hundreds, he reckoned it among his best feat of arms to have stood
his ground before the brave and powerful stranger.

They were now arrived at a small open meadow in the wood, which
terminated in a thick hedge of thorns and briars. The fifer having
secured the horse to a tree off the path, made a gap through the
entangled branches, and gave a sign to Albert to follow. It was not
without difficulty and some danger that he obeyed his leader's
directions, who in many places was obliged to assist him with his hand,
as they proceeded down a narrow footpath into a deep ravine. When they
had descended about eighty feet they came to even ground again, where
the young man expected to find the dwelling of the banished man; but he
was disappointed. His companion then went to a tree of great
circumference, and which was hollow from age, and brought forth two
large torches of pine wood, and striking fire by means of a steel and
flint, and a small bit of sulphur, ignited them.

Albert observed, by the brilliant light of the torches, that they stood
before a large opening which nature had formed in the wall of the rock.
This must be, he thought, the entrance to the habitation of the
stranger, who, as the fifer had expressed himself, had his lodgings
among owls. The man of Hardt took one of the torches, and giving the
other to his companion, said, "The path is dark, and here and there
difficult to trace." With this warning he went on in front, leading
through the dark entrance.

Albert, whose imagination was on the stretch, had expected to be
introduced to a low cavern, short and narrow, like the dwelling of wild
beasts, such as he had seen about the forests of his own country; but
what was his astonishment, when he entered an immense natural cavern,
resembling the lofty halls of a subterranean palace! He had heard in
his boyhood, from a man-servant whose great-grandfather had been
prisoner in Palestine, a story, which had been handed down from
generation to generation in his family, of a boy who had been enticed
by the arts of a wicked magician into a palace under ground, which
surpassed everything in magnificence he had ever seen above it, and
displayed to his view whatever the bold imagination of the east could
fancy of splendour. Golden pillars surmounted by crystal capitals,
arched cupolas studded with emeralds and sapphires, wal