om, when he was in his agony, thou, Bertram, didst resign thy own
security--and didst descend into the perilous and rocking waters?
Deeply, oh deeply, I am in thy debt; far more deeply I would be, when I
ask for favours such as this."

"Is it possible? Are you he? But now I recollect your forehead was then
hidden by streaming hair; convulsive spasms played about your lips; and
your face was disguised by a long beard."

"I am he; and but for thee should now lie in the bowels of a shark, or
spitted upon some rock at the bottom of the ocean. But come, my young
friend, come into the open air: for in this vault I feel the air too
close and confined."

Owls and other night birds which had found an asylum here, disturbed by
the steps of the two nightly wanderers, now soared aloft to the highest
turrets. At length after moving in silence for some minutes, both
stepped out through the pointed arch of a narrow gate-way into the open
air upon a lofty battlement. Nicholas seized Bertram's hand, with the
action of one who would have checked him at some dangerous point;--and,
making a gesture which expressed--"look before you!" he led him to the
outer edge of the wall. At this moment the full moon in perfect glory
burst from behind a towering pile of clouds, and illuminated a region
such as the young man had hitherto scarcely known by description.
Dizzily he looked down upon what seemed a bottomless abyss at his feet.
The Abbey-wall, on which he stood, built with colossal art, was but the
crest or surmounting of a steep and monstrous wall of rock, which rose
out of depths in which his eye could find no point on which to settle.
On the other side of this immeasurable gulph lay in deep shadow--the
main range of Snowdon; whose base was perhaps covered with thick
forests, but whose summit and declivities displayed a dreary waste.
Dazzled by the grandeur of the spectacle, Bertram would have sought
repose for his eye by turning round; but the new scene was, if not
greater, still more striking. From his lofty station he overlooked the
spacious ruins of the entire monastery, as its highest points silvered
over by moonlight shot up from amidst the illimitable night of ravines,
chasms, and rocky peaks that form the dependencies of Snowdon. Add
to these permanent features of the scene the impressive accident of
the time--midnight, with an universal stillness in the air, and the
whole became a fairy scene, in which the dazzled eye comprehended