She put aside her veil to enjoy its freshness, and saw that the knights turned their horses' heads into one of the obscurest mountain defiles.

She started at its depth, and at the gloom which involved its extremity.

"It is our nearest path," said the Scot.

Helen made no reply, but turning her steed also, followed him, there being room for only one at a time to ride along the narrow margin of the river that flowed at its base.

The Englishman, whose voice she had not yet heard, and his attendants, followed likewise in file; and with difficulty the horses could make their way through the thicket which interlaced the pathway, so confined, indeed, that it rather seemed a cleft made by an earthquake in the mountain than a road for the use of man.
When they had been employed for an hour in breaking their way through this trackless glen, they came to a wider space, where other and broader ravines opened before them.