I do not mind a little honest robbery, or knocking a man on the head if need be,--but to make a bargain with the devil! Ah, take care, young gentleman, take care!" "You need not fear," said Glyndon, smiling; "my preceptor is too wise and too good for such a compact.

But here we are, I suppose.

A noble ruin,--a glorious prospect!" Glyndon paused delightedly, and surveyed the scene before and below with the eye of a painter.

Insensibly, while listening to the bandit, he had wound up a considerable ascent, and now he was upon a broad ledge of rock covered with mosses and dwarf shrubs.

Between this eminence and another of equal height, upon which the castle was built, there was a deep but narrow fissure, overgrown with the most profuse foliage, so that the eye could not penetrate many yards below the rugged surface of the abyss; but the profoundness might be well conjectured by the hoarse, low, monotonous roar of waters unseen that rolled below, and the subsequent course of which was visible at a distance in a perturbed and rapid stream that intersected the waste and desolate valleys.
To the left, the prospect seemed almost boundless,--the extreme clearness of the purple air serving to render distinct the features of a range of country that a conqueror of old might have deemed in itself a kingdom.