her skirts tightly
about her, looking everywhere for a footing. She saw a deep cranny
which had been hollowed out by some torrent of water--it cut sharply
through the rock like a path,--she could risk that perhaps, she
thought,--and yet her brain reeled--she felt sick and giddy--would it
not be wiser to stay where she was and wait for the return of the
reckless creature who had ventured all alone into one of the deepest
canons of the whole country? While she hesitated she caught a sudden
glimpse of him, stepping with apparent ease over huge heaps of stones
and fallen pieces of rock at the bottom of the declivity,--she watched
his movements in breathless suspense. On he went towards a vast
aperture, shaped arch-wise like the entrance to a cavern--he paused a
moment--then entered it. This was enough for Manella--her wild love and
wilder terror gave her an almost supernatural strength and daring,--and
all heedless now of results she sprang boldly towards the deep cutting
in the rock, swinging herself from jagged point to point till--reaching
the bottom of the declivity at last, bruised and bleeding, but
undaunted,--she stopped, checked by a rushing stream which tumbled over
great boulders and dashed its cold spray in her face. Looking about her
she saw to her dismay that the vaulted cavern wherein Seaton had
disappeared was on the other side of this stream--she stood almost
opposite to it--but how to get across? Gazing despairingly in every
direction she suddenly perceived the fallen trunk of a tree lying half
in and half out of the brawling torrent--it was green with slippery
moss and offered but a dangerous foothold,--nevertheless she resolved
to attempt it.

"I said I would die for him!" she thought--"and I will!"

Getting astride the tree, it swayed under her,--but she found she could
push one of the larger boughs forward to lengthen the extemporary
bridge,--and so, as it were, riding the waters, which surged noisily
around her, she managed by dint of super-human effort to reach the
projection of pebbly shore where the entrance to the cavern yawned open
before her, black and desolate. The sun in its full morning glory
blazed slanting down upon the darkness of the canon, and as she stood
shivering, wet through and utterly exhausted, wondering what next she
should do, she caught sight of a form moving within the cave like a
moving shadow, and ascending a steep natural stairway of columnar rocks
piled one on top of the