nd had no whit abated, but trod right on till
he reached the spot where the catastrophe which had been so near fatal
to him had occurred. "It was a narrow escape," mused he, looking down
upon the place, not without a slight shudder. "What odd things come into
the head when Death is whispering in the ear! If it had not been for my
fair guide, where should I have been by this time? Beneath the sea, for
certain. But what else? How strange it seems that if there is any
'else,' no one, from the beginning of time till now, of all the millions
who have experienced it, should have come back to tell us! And yet there
was a man who came back from the grave once. Who was he? I recollect his
picture by Haydon; his talk must have been better worth listening to
than that of most. Is nothing true that one hears or reads, I wonder?
Here is where I kissed her! I wouldn't kiss her again, if I had the
chance; I swear I would not. I am a good boy now--all morality, if not
religion--for they do say that hell is paved with good intentions--which
seems hard. If one is to be punished for one's wicked thoughts--even if
they do not bear fruit--it is surely but reasonable that one's good
ones--even if never carried into practice--should be set down on the
credit side of the ledger."

With an exclamation of contempt or impatience, he turned from the dizzy
sight of cliff and sea, and shouldered his way through the wind-kept
doorway on to the open summit of the rock. It was a wild waste place
indeed, yet not without ample indications of having been inhabited in
days of old. Low but massive walls sketched out the ground-plan of many
a chamber, the respective uses of which could only now be guessed at.
But beneath one broken arch there was a heap of rude steps with a stone
something on it, which Richard rightly imagined had once formed an
altar. Man had worshiped there thirteen hundred years ago. Nay, not far
off, and in the very centre of this desolate hold, there was a
burial-ground, with a low wall of earth about it, which neither time,
nor the curious barbarism which marks our epoch, had much defaced. The
archaeologists had been there, of course, and discovered evidence which
had satisfied them of the presence of the remains of their
fellow-creatures; but with that they had been content. The dead had, for
the most part, been left undisturbed in their rocky graves, to await the
summons in the faith of which--and perhaps even for it--they had died.