ad in vain cast longing eyes.

Now, although Paul Nicholas had little knowledge of geography, he could
not help remarking, as he journeyed with Mlle Nurrez, that their route
was in an exactly opposite direction to that leading to the town which
his companion had named to him as her place of residence. He pointed out
his difficulty, but Mlle de Nurrez only laughed.

"Wait!" she said. "Wait and see. We shall get there all right. You must
trust to my wit."

Paul Nicholas made no further comment. He was already in the seventh
heaven--that was enough for him; and leaning back, he continued gazing
at her profile.

The afternoon passed away, the sun sank, and night and its shadows moved
solemnly on them. Gradually the roadside trees became distinguishable
only as deeper masses of shadow, and Paul Nicholas could only tell they
were trees by the peculiar sodden odour that, from time to time,
sluggishly flowed in at the open window of the carriage. Of necessity,
they were proceeding slowly--the road was for the most part uphill, and
the horses, though tough and hardy natives of the mountains, had begun
to show signs of flagging. They did not pass by a soul, and even the
sighs of astonished cattle, whose ruminating slumbers they had routed,
at last became events of the greatest rarity. At each yard they advanced
the wildness of the country increased, and although the landscape was
hidden, its influence was felt. Paul Nicholas knew, as well as if he had
seen them, that he was in the presence of grotesque, isolated boulders,
wide patches of bare, desolate soil, gaunt trees, and profound
straggling fissures.

Being so long confined in a limited space, although in that space was a
paradise, he felt the exquisite agony of cramp, and when, after sundry
attempts to stretch himself, he at length found a position that afforded
him temporary relief, it was only to become aware of a more refined
species of torture. The springs of the carriage rising and falling
regularly, produced a rhythmical beat, which began to painfully absorb
his attention, and to slowly merge into a senseless echo of one of his
observations to Mlle de Nurrez. And when he was becoming reconciled to
this inferno, another forced itself upon him. How quiet the driver was!
Was there any driver? He couldn't see any. Possibly, nay, probably--why
not?--the driver was lying gagged and bound on the roadside, and a
bandit, one of the notorious Spanish bandits, against whom h