His form was enveloped in a large cloak, which was of such ample
material that he seemed well able to wrap it several times around him,
and then leave a considerable portion of it floating idly in the gentle
wind.

He stood as still, as calm, and as motionless as a statue, for a
considerable time, before any degree of impatience began to show itself.

Then he took from his pocket a large antique watch, the white face of
which just enabled him to see what the time was, and, in a voice which
had in it some amount of petulance and anger, he said,--

"Not come yet, and nearly half an hour beyond the time! What can have
detained him? This is, indeed, trifling with the most important moments
of a man's existence."

Even as he spoke, he heard, from some distance off, the sound of a
short, quick footstep. He bent forwards to listen, and then, in a tone
of satisfaction, he said,--

"He comes--he comes!"

But he who thus waited for some confederate among these dim and old grey
ruins, advanced not a step to meet him. On the contrary, such seemed the
amount of cold-blooded caution which he possessed, that the nearer the
man--who was evidently advancing--got to the place, the further back did
he who had preceded him shrink into the shadow of the dim and crumbling
walls, which had, for some years now past, seemed to bend to the passing
blast, and to be on the point of yielding to the destroying hand of
time.

And yet, surely he needed not have been so cautious. Who was likely, at
such an hour as that, to come to the ruins, but one who sought it by
appointment?

And, moreover, the manner of the advancing man should have been quite
sufficient to convince him who waited, that so much caution was
unnecessary; but it was a part and parcel of his nature.

About three minutes more sufficed to bring the second man to the ruin,
and he, at once, and fearlessly, plunged into its recesses.

"Who comes?" said the first man, in a deep, hollow voice.

"He whom you expect," was the reply.

"Good," he said, and at once he now emerged from his hiding-place, and
they stood together in the nearly total darkness with which the place
was enshrouded; for the night was a cloudy one, and there appeared not a
star in the heavens, to shed its faint light upon the scene below.

For a few moments they were both silent, for he who had last arrived had
evidently made great exertions to reach the spot, and was breathing
laboriously, while he who was