thin a minute."

And as Mark spoke he detached a fragment of rock from the mountain,
and sent it bounding over the edge of the precipice, while Herbert,
awe-struck at the nearness of the peril, recoiled instinctively from the
brink of the cliff.

"There was a ship of the Spanish Armada wrecked in that little bay--they
show you still some mounds of earth upon the shore they call the
Spaniards' graves," said Mark, as he stood peering through the misty
darkness into the depth below. "The peasantry had lighted a fire on this
rock, and the vessel, a three-decker, decoyed by the signal, held on her
course, in shore, and was lost. Good heavens!" cried he, after a brief
pause, "why has this fatality ever been our lot? Why have we welcomed
our foes with smiles, and our friends with hatred and destruction? These
same Spaniards were our brethren and our kindred, and the bitter enemies
of our enslavers; and even yet we can perpetuate the memory of their
ruin, as a thing of pride and triumph. Are we for ever to be thus, or is
a better day to dawn upon us?"

Herbert, who by experience knew how much more excited Mark became by
even the slightest opposition, forbore to speak, and again they pursued
their way.

They had continued for some time thus, when Mark, taking Herbert's arm,
pointed to a dark mass which seemed to loom straight above their heads,
where, towering to a considerable height, it terminated in a sharp
pinnacle.

"Yonder is the summit, Herbert--courage for a quarter of an hour more,
and the breach is won."

The youth heaved a heavy sigh, and muttered--

"Would it were so."

If Herbert became dispirited and worn out by the dark and dreary way,
where no sight nor sound relieved the dull monotony of fatigue, Mark's
spirit seemed to grow lighter with every step he went. As if he had left
his load of care with the nether world, his light and bounding movement,
and his joyous voice, spoke of a heart which, throwing off its weight of
sorrow, revelled once more in youthful ecstasy.

"You who are a poet, Herbert, tell me if you have faith in those
instinctive fancies which seem to shadow forth events."

"If you mean to ask me whether, from my present sensations, I anticipate
a heavy cold, or a fit of rheumatism, I say, most certainly," replied
Herbert, half doggedly.

Mark smiled, and continued--

"No, those are among the common course of events. What I asked for was
an explanation of my own feelings at this momen