Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/105

 From these objects I willingly turned my eye upon those before and above me, on the opposite ascent. A stream, rushing from above, fell into a cavity, which its own force seemed gradually to have made. The noise and the motion equally attracted my attention: there was a desolate and solitary grandeur in the scene, enhanced by the circumstances in which it was beheld, and by the perils through which I had recently passed, that had never before been witnessed by me.

A sort of sanctity and awe environed it, owing to the consciousness of absolute and utter loneliness. It was probable that human feet had never before gained this recess, that human eyes had never been fixed upon these gushing waters. The aboriginal inhabitants had no motives to lead them into caves like this, and ponder on the verge of such a precipice: their successors were still less likely to have wandered hither: since the birth of this continent, I was probably the first who had deviated thus remotely from the customary paths of men.

While musing upon these ideas, my eye was fixed upon the foaming current. At length I looked upon the rocks which confined and embarrassed its course. I admired their fantastic shapes and endless irregularities: passing from one to the other of these, my attention lighted, at length, as if by some magical transition, on—a human countenance!

My surprise was so abrupt, and my sensations so tumultuous, that I forgot for a moment the perilous nature of my situation: I loosened my hold of a pine branch, which had been hitherto one of my supports, and almost started from my seat. Had my station been in a slight degree nearer the brink than it was, I should have fallen headlong into the abyss.

To meet a human creature, even on that side of the chasm which I occupied, would have been wholly adverse to my expectation: my station was accessible by no other road than that through which I had passed, and no motives were imaginable by which others could be prompted to explore this road: but he whom I now beheld, was seated where it seemed impossible for human efforts to have placed him.