He had been five years in Spain, and was now four and twenty; but few would have imagined him that age, so frank and free and full of thoughtless mirth and hasty impulse was his character.  These last fifteen months, however, a shadow seemed to have fallen over him, not deep enough to create remark, but felt by himself.  His feelings, always ardent, had been all excited, and were all concentrated, on a subject so wrapt in mystery, that the wish to solve it engrossed his whole being.  Except when engaged in the weary stratagem, the rapid march, and actual conflict, necessary for Ferdinand’s interest, but one thought, composed of many, occupied his mind, and in solitude so distractingly, that he could never rest; he would traverse the country for miles, conscious indeed of what he sought, but perfectly unconscious where he went.

It was in one of these moods he had entered the pass we have described, rejoicing in its difficulties, but not thinking where it led, or what place he sought, when a huge crag suddenly rising almost perpendicularly before him, effectually roused him from his trance.  Outlet there was none.  All around him towered mountains, reaching to the skies.  The path was so winding, that, as he looked round bewildered, he could not even imagine how he came there.  To retrace his steps, seemed quite as difficult as to proceed.  The sun too had declined, or was effectually concealed by the towering rocks, for sudden darkness seemed around him.  There was but one way, and Stanley prepared to scale the precipitous crag before him with more eagerness than he would a beaten path.  He threw off his cloak, folded it in the smallest possible compass, and secured it like a knapsack to his shoulders, slung his sword over his neck, and, with a vigorous spring, which conquered several paces of slippery rock at once, commenced the ascent.  Some brushwood, and one or two stunted trees, gave him now and then a hold for his hands; and occasional ledges in the rock, a resting for his foot; but still one false step, one failing nerve, and he must have fallen backwards and been dashed to pieces; but to Arthur the danger was his safety.  Where he was going, indeed he knew not.  He could see no further than the summit of the crag, which appeared like a line against the sky; but any bewilderment were preferable to the strange stagnation towards outward objects, which had enwrapped him ten minutes before.

Panting, breathless, almost exhausted, he reached the summit, and before him yawned a chasm, dark, fathomless, as if nature in some wild convulsion had rent the rock asunder.  The level ground on which he stood was barely four feet square; behind him sloped the most precipitous side of the crag, devoid of tree or bush, and slippery from the constant moisture that formed a deep black pool at its base.  Stanley hazarded but one glance behind, then looked steadily forward, till his eye seemed accustomed to the width