gly, "could we gain the
cave below."

"The cave!" said Aram, starting, as if the word had a sound of fear.

"Ay, ay: but not St. Robert's," said Houseman; and the grin of his teeth
was visible through the dullness of the shade. "But come, give me your
hand, and I will venture to conduct you through the thicket:--that is
your left hand," observed Houseman with a sharp and angry suspicion in
his tone; "give me the right."

"As you will," said Aram in a subdued, yet meaning voice, that seemed to
come from his heart; and thrilled, for an instant, to the bones of him
who heard it; "as you will; but for fourteen years I have not given this
right hand, in pledge of fellowship, to living man; you alone deserve
the courtesy--there!"

Houseman hesitated, before he took the hand now extended to him.

"Pshaw!" said he, as if indignant at himself, "what! scruples at a
shadow! Come," (grasping the hand) "that's well--so, so; now we are in
the thicket--tread firm--this way--hold," continued Houseman, under his
breath, as suspicion anew seemed to cross him; "hold! we can see each
other's face not even dimly now: but in this hand, my right is free, I
have a knife that has done good service ere this; and if I feel cause to
suspect that you meditate to play me false, I bury it in your heart; do
you heed me?"

"Fool!" said Aram, scornfully, "I should dread you dead yet more than
living."

Houseman made no answer; but continued to grope on through the path in
the thicket, which he evidently knew well; though even in daylight,
so thick were the trees, and so artfully had their boughs been left to
cover the track, no path could have been discovered by one unacquainted
with the clue.

They had now walked on for some minutes, and of late their steps had
been threading a rugged, and somewhat precipitous descent: all this
while, the pulse of the hand Houseman held, beat with as steadfast and
calm a throb, as in the most quiet mood of learned meditation; although
Aram could not but be conscious that a mere accident, a slip of the
foot, an entanglement in the briars, might awaken the irritable fears of
his ruffian comrade, and bring the knife to his breast. But this was
not that form of death that could shake the nerves of Aram; nor, though
arming his whole soul to ward off one danger, was he well sensible of
another, that might have seemed equally near and probable, to a less
collected and energetic nature. Houseman now halted, again put