she continued, forcing back
the choking sob, and breaking from his passionate embrace. "There is
danger alike for my father and thee, if thou tarriest longer. Not that
way," she added, as his eye glanced inquiringly towards the hill by
which he had descended; "there is another and an easier path; follow
me--thou wilt not betray it?"

"Never!" was the solemn rejoinder, and not a word more passed between
them. He followed her through what seemed to be an endless maze, and
paused before a towering rock, which, smooth and perpendicular as a
wall built by man, ran round the vale and seemed to reach to heaven.
Pushing aside the thick brushwood, Marie stood beside the rock, and by
some invisible movement, a low door flew open and disclosed a winding
staircase.

"Thou wilt trust me, Arthur?"

"Ay, unto death," he answered, springing after her up the rugged
stair. Narrow loopholes, almost concealed without by trees and
brushwood, dimly lighted the staircase, as also a low, narrow passage,
which branched off in zig-zag windings at the top, and terminated, as
their woody path had done, in a solid wall. But again an invisible
door flew open, closing behind them; and after walking about a hundred
yards through prickly shrubs and entangled brushwood that obscured his
sight, Marie paused, and Arthur gazed round bewildered. A seemingly
boundless plain stretched for miles around him, its green level
only diversified by rocks scattered about in huge masses and wild
confusion, as if hurled in fury from some giant's hand. The rock
whence he had issued was completely invisible. He looked around again
and again, but only to bewilder himself yet more.

"The way looks more dreary than it is. Keep to the left: though it
seems the less trodden path thou wilt find there a shelter for the
night, and to-morrow's sun will soon guide thee to a frontier town;
thy road will be easy then. Night is falling so fast now, thou hadst
best not linger, Arthur."

But he did linger, till once more he had drawn from her a confession
of her love, that none other could take his place, even while she
conjured him never to seek her again--and so they parted. Five minutes
more, and there was not a vestige of a human form on the wide-extended
plain.

CHAPTER III.

"Now History unfolds her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time."

Clearly to comprehend the internal condition of Spain at the period
of our narrative (1479)--a condition which, th