He rises slowly, goes to the edge of the precipice to estimate better his way down. Growing more conscious at every step, his footsteps begin to quicken. He understands perfectly his danger; he has often ascended, and alone, not simply to this height, but to the very loftiest peak of Criba Ban.

He sees that the gathering mist has already shrouded all the lower part of the mountain, but he also sees a certain spot on the way down, which once reached, he would be safe, even if moving through a deeper than Egyptian darkness afterwards. The way to that spot is fortunately also sufficiently clear at present, and may remain so to enable him to pass through its dangers, if he does not lose a moment. Once the mist covers that route, he sees it is death to go down; and probably for him, in his present state, worse than death to remain on the mountain through such a night.

The prospect of danger does him good, brings back some instinct of mental health, and best of all, gives him work that may shut out, at least for a few minutes, or perhaps more, the sense of his intolerable sufferings.

He moves carefully. Between him and the goal to be reached are black tarns of soundless depth, sudden, precipitous descents, ridges, crossing which, under such circumstances, is apt to appear to the bewildered wanderer like walking along the edge of a gigantic knife; these, and a score of lesser but confusing obstacles, he has to deal with.

The fast-rising wind increases the cold and the danger. The mist comes every now and then as if in dense patches; he is obliged at a certain point to pause for breath, and to take counsel with himself as to a choice of the routes that offer over a particularly dangerous chasm.

It was during that pause he heard something which induced him to prolong it, even though conscious life now might be a question of minutes, nay, even of seconds.

He heard it again, but half fancied it was the wind, and determined to heed it not, but go on.

Some inexplicable impulse of humanity however stopped him again to listen, and then he heard clearly a low wail come by him borne on the wind.

Full of wonder as to the human being who could be here at such an hour, and desirous to save time, he went back a few yards, and there saw a shadowy something, just a little denser than the enveloping mist, advancing towards him.

The wail came again, a piteous one, and very feeble. He had evidently been seen. What was he to do? A few minutes lost now might compromise him hopelessly. The thought of hope' was sufficient. He went back.

The form suddenly disappeared. Cunliff stood transfixed with horror; he ran on, and found what seemed to him at first sight a heap of rags. Stooping, he touched it, and a groan came from beneath.

'What in the world is it?' he said aloud: then some of the rags were pushed aside, and a wizened, old hatchet-face looked up at him with cap-frills shaking round it, and toothless jaws moving as they uttered what appeared to him a jargon he had never heard before. Certainly, he thought, if this were Welsh, it was very different from the Welsh they talked at Bod Elian. Suddenly the poor old soul stopped her incomprehensible complaint, and said sharply, and with ineffable disgust and despair, in Welsh:

'No English!'

'No English!' echoed Sir John, 'I understand that. But what the devil are you doing here?'

'No English!' again answered the old woman, with ‘a piteous wail.

'Well, up with you,' he said, energetically speaking, though he knew she could not understand him, but feeling as as if his words must make his signs more comprehensible to her. Up with you,' and he tried to lift her.

He managed to get her to stand, then seeing that she had a bundle hanging by a string round her waist, he tried to take it from her. 6 Come, away with this; it's as much as I can do to save you, you poor silly old creature, staying here till this time of night.'

She looked at him bewildered at first, as to what he wanted with her bundle, but when she understood by his tugging at it that he meant to take it from her, she pushed him off with her long, stiff-knuckled-hand, and hugged her bundle to her, shaking her head emphatically at him.

'Come, away with it, I say; why what the deuce is in it, you miserable creature?'

She understood by his touching it, and perhaps by the tone of his voice, his curiosity, and making her stiff, trembling old limbs bob a curtsey, undid a corner of her bundle, and respectfully showed him it was full of sheep-wool.

" And you come up here for this?' he said; and she, seeing him look round again, understood him. She saw that the ever-inquisitive Englishman-inquisitive even at such a time and place as this desired to be informed as to where she got it from, and immediately picked some bits from a bush close to her, bits which the sheep had left clinging there. She also pointed to the east, then to the west, by which Sir John understood her to mean she had been here at her work from sunrise till now.

'Well, come,' he said, putting his arm round her, and half lifting her along.

He looked for the goal of safety. It had passed out of sight. Still, he reflected, the light might be sufficient for the way to be traced step by step, if only they could but go faster.

The poor old woman strained her little powers to the utmost to keep up with the gentleman, but her pace slackened, rather than increased, her weight to him grew more serious every minute.

He began to think this was only risking both lives. Had he not better lay her down in some sheltered corner, then go at his greatest possible speed to Dolgarrog, and send off ample assistance? How exquisitely ridiculous to good society would seem the fate of Sir John Cunliff, when reported as perishing in attempting to save a wretched old woman, whose wits, like his own, had gone wool-gathering on Criba Ban!

The person in question saved him all further trouble about this problem; she suddenly slid to the ground moaning with the pain of her sprained foot, mutely refusing, with all the obstinacy of age, to move any farther.

Fortunate chance! But Sir John Cunliff seems no longer himself, is evidently losing his self-possession, and growing childish. Somehow, this poor, exhausted life has swelled to him into something of value, something that he cannot afford to lose, something that suggests to him he knows not what, but that he means to look to by-and-by.

'Now, mother, I am an obstinate man myself, and therefore your obstinacy is of no use. Tell me, can you or can you not

walk?'

All the answer she could give him was to lay her head. more at ease on the slaty earth, and murmur meekly in her cracked voice

'N's da!'

'No, no-not "Good-night," yet. Now for your bundle! Hark! do you hear it going down? I wish I could roll you with as little harm down the same crag-but as I can't, I must do this.'

He knelt, raised her up, half sitting, turned his back to her, slid his arms under hers, and in a trice he was again on his feet, and labouring along under his load; which, happily for him, was not heavy-had known too little nourishment to be in danger of such a state.

And in that position there came into his thoughts remembrances of old Dalilahs of his experience and imagination, and the contrast seemed to him delicious in its bitterness.

He speculates upon her, and finds relief, in so doing, from speculations nearer home. Had she a soul to be saved? He could not tell! but by the living God he would save her body, if the thing was to be done. He felt thankful that such a thing as even this poor life was intrusted to him.

The wind was now coming in fearful rushes, so that to cross particular spots became at times impossible without delay.

On one such occasion he put down his burden for rest, and gazed about till he forgot alike her and himself in the extraordinary phenomenon that presented itself. The day was yet light enough to see the valley but for the mist. Where he now stood on an isolated height, the fury of the wind kept the mist in a perpetual boil, but every instant it would open, the world beneath would be seen, then instantaneously close again, and so all round, towards every point of the compass. Anything more awful than the continued glimpses of the infernal caldron in which they seemed to stand-or than the mad dance that the world itself seemed to be performing round him, Cunliff had never seen. His imagination, which just then drank deep of horror, soon pictured it all as a Cambrian Walpurgis night, a saturnalia for witches and devils, and for aught he knew, here he was hugging one of the supernatural hags to his very breast.

When he took up his burden again, at the first lull of the tempest, he found her all but lifeless.

He began to find his own strength-which hitherto he had recklessly drawn upon-now fail; and with that came the thought he too would fail in what he had set himself to achieve.

The damp sweat is on his face. The obstacles are too tremendous. He glances for a single moment up to the skywhere nothing but mist meets his gaze-he utters in words no prayer, but the pleading, passionate cry of his soul is not the less heard.

It is for the poor old creature's life to be saved.

He ventures now upon the last of the really serious difficulties, the passage across an open, sloping space, on which the whole fury of the wind seems bent on expending itself.

Steadying his own and her weight at every step, ready at any moment to drop to the ground, he passes two-thirds of the way in safety, and with something like exultation at his heart for that bit of conquest simply, when the two forms are caught from behind as by the power of a gently-touching, yet irresistible hand-the hand of the spirit of the giant mountain evoked for their destruction-which lifts him and his burden, gives no time for thought, or cry, and sweeps him and her along as but mere human straws.

'Hircll!' That is his last thought, hope, and aspiration, believing that the hour had indeed come! when lo, the dangling feet of the old woman strike against some projection of rock, that enabled Cunliff to stay the rush for a single moment, and that moment Cunliff used for his and her bodily salvation, by hugging the ground, as children might hug their mother, fresh from the most imminent danger.

He waits now for rest, as well as for the chance of a fresh lull, vainly striving to comfort the old woman by a few genial words from time to time; but at last he ventures the rest of the transit, succeeds, and all the remainder of the way is but fatigue, bodily pain, and assured success.

He leaves her at a little stone hut that he knows of, under shelter; reaches Dolgarrog; sends off a carriage and a couple of men for his late companion; waits in the dreadful solitude of his chamber for the news of her safe arrival and recovery, thankful he has that yet to engross him; then lies down in his clothes on the bed, not expecting long to stay there, even if to sleep at all, but he does sleep in spite of fate.

His last words as he was sinking into sleep were: 'Men sleep, they say, before execution; the devil's in it if I can't after.'