th the daring agility which custom had
rendered easy, she vanished from the platform on which she stood, and, by
notches and slight projections in the rock, scrambled down its face into
the chasm which it overhung. Steady, bold, and active, Morton hesitated
not to follow her; but the necessary attention to secure his hold and
footing in a descent where both foot and hand were needful for security,
prevented him from looking around him, till, having descended nigh twenty
feet, and being sixty or seventy above the pool which received the fall,
his guide made a pause, and he again found himself by her side in a
situation that appeared equally romantic and precarious. They were nearly
opposite to the waterfall, and in point of level situated at about
one-quarter's depth from the point of the cliff over which it thundered,
and three-fourths of the height above the dark, deep, and restless pool
which received its fall. Both these tremendous points--the first shoot,
namely, of the yet unbroken stream, and the deep and sombre abyss into
which it was emptied--were full before him, as well as the whole
continuous stream of billowy froth, which, dashing from the one, was
eddying and boiling in the other. They were so near this grand phenomenon
that they were covered with its spray, and well-nigh deafened by the
incessant roar. But crossing in the very front of the fall, and at scarce
three yards distance from the cataract, an old oak-tree, flung across the
chasm in a manner that seemed accidental, formed a bridge of fearfully
narrow dimensions and uncertain footing. The upper end of the tree rested
on the platform on which they stood; the lower or uprooted extremity
extended behind a projection on the opposite side, and was secured,
Morton's eye could not discover where. From behind the same projection
glimmered a strong red light, which, glancing in the waves of the falling
water, and tinging them partially with crimson, had a strange
preternatural and sinister effect when contrasted with the beams of the
rising sun, which glanced on the first broken waves of the fall, though
even its meridian splendour could not gain the third of its full depth.
When he had looked around him for a moment, the girl again pulled his
sleeve, and, pointing to the oak and the projecting point beyond it (for
hearing speech was now out of the question), indicated that there lay his
farther passage.

Morton gazed at her with surprise; for although he wel