eep, or bark of watch-dog, broke on silence, and they were now too far
off to hear even the faint thunder of the cannon. Towards evening, they
wound down precipices, black with forests of cypress, pine and cedar,
into a glen so savage and secluded, that, if Solitude ever had local
habitation, this might have been 'her place of dearest residence.' To
Emily it appeared a spot exactly suited for the retreat of banditti,
and, in her imagination, she already saw them lurking under the brow of
some projecting rock, whence their shadows, lengthened by the setting
sun, stretched across the road, and warned the traveller of his danger.
She shuddered at the idea, and, looking at her conductors, to observe
whether they were armed, thought she saw in them the banditti she
dreaded!

It was in this glen, that they proposed to alight, 'For,' said Ugo,
'night will come on presently, and then the wolves will make it
dangerous to stop.' This was a new subject of alarm to Emily, but
inferior to what she suffered from the thought of being left in these
wilds, at midnight, with two such men as her present conductors. Dark
and dreadful hints of what might be Montoni's purpose in sending her
hither, came to her mind. She endeavoured to dissuade the men from
stopping, and enquired, with anxiety, how far they had yet to go.

'Many leagues yet,' replied Bertrand. 'As for you, Signora, you may do
as you please about eating, but for us, we will make a hearty supper,
while we can. We shall have need of it, I warrant, before we finish
our journey. The sun's going down apace; let us alight under that rock,
yonder.'

His comrade assented, and, turning the mules out of the road, they
advanced towards a cliff, overhung with cedars, Emily following in
trembling silence. They lifted her from her mule, and, having seated
themselves on the grass, at the foot of the rocks, drew some homely
fare from a wallet, of which Emily tried to eat a little, the better to
disguise her apprehensions.

The sun was now sunk behind the high mountains in the west, upon which a
purple haze began to spread, and the gloom of twilight to draw over the
surrounding objects. To the low and sullen murmur of the breeze, passing
among the woods, she no longer listened with any degree of pleasure,
for it conspired with the wildness of the scene and the evening hour, to
depress her spirits.

Suspense had so much increased her anxiety, as to the prisoner at
Udolpho, that, finding i