is so, we
must have wandered far out of our way."

"And hush! Don't you hear something?" inquired Sybil, when they had
ridden a little farther on.

"No; what is it?"

"Listen! I want to know if you recognize it," she said.

"I hear a faint, distant roaring, as of a water-fall," he answered,
stopping his horse to hear the better.

"It is our Black Torrent!" exclaimed Sybil.

"Good Heaven! Then we have wandered out of our way with a vengeance.
However, there is no help for it now! We must go on, or stop here until
it is light enough to consult the compass."

"And at any rate, Lyon, no one will think of looking for us so near
home," she added.

"That is true," he admitted.

And they rode on slowly, looking about as well as they could through
the darkness, for a convenient place on which to dismount from the jaded
steeds.

Their path now lay through that deep mountain pass. Steep precipices
arose on either side. They picked their way slowly and carefully through
it, until they entered a crooked path leading down the side of a thickly
wooded hill. Here they rode on, a little more at their ease, until they
reached the bottom of the hill and the edge of the wood, and came out
upon an old forsaken road, running along the shores of a deep and rapid
river, with another mountain range behind.

"Well, Heaven bless us! here we are!" exclaimed Lyon Berners, reining up
his horse and looking around himself in a ludicrous state of mind, made
up of surprise, dismay, and resignation.

"Yes; on the shores of the Black River, at the head of our own Black
Valley," chimed in Sybil, in a tone of voice in which there was more of
satisfaction than of disappointment. Poor Sybil was sentimental and
illogical, like all her sex.

"But at a point at which, I may venture to say, that even you, its
owner, never reached before," added Lyon, as he touched up his horse and
led the way up the road, still looking about as well as he could through
the darkness, for a place in which to stop and rest their horses.

Suddenly, as they rode slowly onward, they heard approaching them from
the opposite direction the sound of a wagon and horse, accompanied by a
human voice, singing:

"Brothers and sisters there will meet,
Brothers and sisters there will meet,
Brothers and sisters there will meet--
Will meet, to part no more!"

"Yes, bress de Lord! so dey will. And all departed friends will meet,
and meet to part no more!