the trees, that seemed to foretell an
approaching storm. Accordingly, the heavens contracted a more dreary
aspect, the lightning began to gleam, and the thunder to roll, and the
tempest, raising its voice to a tremendous roar, descended in a torrent
of rain.

In this emergency, the fortitude of our hero was almost quite overcome.
So many concurring circumstances of danger and distress might have
appalled the most undaunted breast; what impression then must they have
made upon the mind of Ferdinand, who was by no means a man to set fear at
defiance! Indeed, he had well-nigh lost the use of his reflection, and
was actually invaded to the skin, before he could recollect himself so
far as to quit the road, and seek for shelter among the thickets that
surrounded him. Having rode some furlongs into the forest, he took his
station under a tuft of tall trees, that screened him from the storm, and
in that situation called a council within himself, to deliberate upon his
next excursion. He persuaded himself that his guide had deserted him for
the present, in order to give intelligence of a traveller to some gang of
robbers with whom he was connected; and that he must of necessity fall a
prey to those banditti, unless he should have the good fortune to elude
their search, and disentangle himself from the mazes of the wood.

Harrowed with these apprehensions, he resolved to commit himself to the
mercy of the hurricane, as of two evils the least, and penetrate
straightforwards through some devious opening, until he should be
delivered from the forest. For this purpose he turned his horse's head in
a line quite contrary to the direction of the high road which he had
left, on the supposition that the robbers would pursue that track in
quest of him, and that they would never dream of his deserting the
highway, to traverse an unknown forest, amidst the darkness of such a
boisterous night. After he had continued in this progress through a
succession of groves, and bogs, and thorns, and brakes, by which not only
his clothes, but also his skin suffered in a grievous manner, while every
nerve quivered with eagerness and dismay, he at length reached an open
plain, and pursuing his course, in full hope of arriving at some village,
where his life would be safe, he descried a rush-light at a distance,
which he looked upon as the star of his good fortune, and riding towards
it at full speed, arrived at the door of a lone cottage, into which