Still a trifle pale, yet with a look of health and vigor, he sat there hard at work, writing as fast as pen could travel.

Hardly a word he changed.

Sheet by sheet he wrote, and pushed them aside and still worked on.

Some of the pages slid to the porch-floor, but he gave no heed.

His brow was wrinkled with the intensity of his thought; and over his face, where now a disguising beard was beginning to be visible, the light of the sinking sun cast as it were a kind of glowing radiance.
At last the man looked up, and smiled, and eyed the golden mountain-tops far off across the valley.
"Wonderful aerie in the hills!" he murmured.