spot, overgrown with brambles, and surrounded with high and widely
spreading trees, whose sombre foliage offered an impenetrable barrier to
the light of day. They plunged into the midst of this wilderness, and
presently the renegade blew a soft and hollow blast, when the thicket
suddenly seemed to move, and discovered an aperture which had hitherto
been concealed. The two Moors, for such they were, and their guide, then
descended through the opening into a deep and winding subterraneous
passage. After a descent of a few minutes, they found themselves in a
spacious vault hewn out of the solid rock and illumined by a solitary
lamp, which afforded only light sufficient to render the darkness more
dismal, and to give an indistinct view of forms and countenances
naturally repulsive, rendered still more so by apparent want and
exhaustion. About a dozen men and two or three women were reposing at
length in different parts of the cave, without any other covering than
their tattered dresses, and bearing on their features an expression of
resolute despair.

At the further extremity of the cavern, which was somewhat elevated, and
rendered more tenantable by several pieces of an old carpet, reclined a
man of better appearance, whose apparel had evidently not undergone
such severe service as those of his companions. This personage it might
easily be supposed was the chief of those who, from their exterior,
might, without any great deviation from the rules of inferences, be
denominated a gang of desperate robbers. But it seldom happens that
robbers in the vicinity of a rich and populous city are to be found in a
state of such utter destitution; and if such were really the case, it
might puzzle the beholder to discover what possible inducement they
could have to continue in so unprofitable a profession.

As soon as the renegade and his two companions entered that cheerless
and uncomfortable dwelling, all those woe-begone and lugubrious
countenances suddenly acquired a degree of animation. It was not without
reason; for the renegade and one of his companions laid down some
provisions, whilst the other stood with his arms folded, a calm
spectator of these proceedings, contemplating with deep attention the
group before him.

"Alagraf! Malique!" cried the seated personage above designated: "Who
is that stranger?"

"Fear not, Caneri," whispered the renegade, "this is a friend--nay,
perhaps the sincerest adherent and the bravest suppor