he little portal about 100 yards further. The wall,
scarce three feet wide, stood here nearly insulated: and was on the one
side bounded by the abyss just described, and on the other by what
might have been an inner court--that lay however at least three stories
deep below. Nothing but a cross-wall, which rose above the court
towards a little tower, touched this main wall. At the extremity of
this last, where it broke off abruptly, both stopped. Hardly forty
steps removed from them, rose the great tower, which in past times
doubtless had been connected with the point at which they stood, but
was now divided by as deep a gulph as that which lay to the outside
wall, "Further there is nothing," said his guide: "often have I come
hither and meditated whether I should not make one step onwards, and in
that way release myself from all anxiety about any future steps upon
this earth."

"But the power and the grandeur of nature have arrested you and awed
you?"

"Right. Look downwards into the abyss before us:--deep, deep below,
trickles along, between pebbles and moss and rocky fragment, a little
brook: now it is lit up by the moon;--and at this moment it seems to me
as if something were stirring; and now something is surely leaping
over:--but no--it was deception: often when I have stood here in
meditation, and could not comprehend what checked me from taking one
bold leap, a golden pillar of moonlight has met me gleaming upwards
from the little brook below--(brook that I have haunted in happier
days); and suddenly I have risen as if ashamed--and stolen away in
silence."

"Nicholas, do you believe in God?"

"Will you know the truth? I have lately learnt to believe."

"By what happy chance?"

"Happy!" and his companion laughed bitterly. "Leagued with bold and
desperate men, to rid the world of a knot of vipers, for months I had
waited for the moment when they should assemble together, in order to
annihilate at one blow the entire brood. Daily we prayed, if you will
call that praying, that this moment would arrive: but months after
months passed: we waited; and we despaired. At length on a day,--I
remember it was at noon--in burst a friend upon us and cried
out--'Triumph and glory! this night the King's ministers all meet at
Lord Harrowby's.' At these words many stern conspirators fell on their
knees; others folded their hands--hands (God knows!) but little used to
such a folding: I could do neither; I stretched out my ar