Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/174

 cavern, and attempt the rescue of the girl. The success of this project depended on the continuance of their sleep: it was proper to approach with wariness, and to heed the smallest token which might bespeak their condition. I crept along the path, bending my ear forward to catch any sound that might arise. I heard nothing but the half-stifled sobs of the girl.

I entered with the slowest and most anxious circumspection: every thing was found in its pristine state. The girl noticed my entrance with a mixture of terror and joy: my gestures and looks enjoined upon her silence. I stooped down, and taking another hatchet, cut asunder the deerskin thongs by which her wrists and ankles were tied; I then made signs for her to rise and follow me. She willingly complied with my directions; but her benumbed joints and lacerated sinews refused to support her: there was no time to be lost; I therefore lifted her in my arms, and, feeble and tottering as I was, proceeded with this burden along the perilous steep, and over a most rugged path.

I hoped that some exertion would enable her to retrieve the use of her limbs: I set her, therefore, on her feet, exhorting her to walk as well as she was able, and promising her my occasional assistance. The poor girl was not deficient in zeal, and presently moved along with light and quick steps: we speedily reached the bottom of the hill.

No fancy can conceive a scene more wild and desolate than that which now presented itself. The soil was nearly covered with sharp fragments of stone; between these sprung brambles and creeping vines, whose twigs crossing and intertwining with each other, added to the roughness below, made the passage infinitely toilsome. Scattered over this space were single cedars, with their ragged spines and wreaths of moss, and copses of dwarf oaks, which were only new emblems of sterility.

I was wholly unacquainted with the scene before me: no marks of habitation or culture, no traces of the footsteps of men, were discernible: I scarcely knew in what region of the globe I was placed; I had come hither by means so