Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 4).djvu/304

 fully narrow dimensions and uncertain footing. The upper end of the tree rested on the platform on which they stood—the lower or uprooted extremity extended behind a projection on the opposite side, and was secured, Morton's eye could not discover where. From behind the same projection glimmered a strong red light, which, glancing in the waves of the falling water, and tinging them partially with crimson, had a strange preternatural and sinister effect when contrasted with the beams of the rising sun, which glanced on the first broken waves of the fall, though even its meridian splendour could not gain the third of its full depth. When he had looked around him for a moment, the girl again pulled his sleeve, and pointing to the oak and the projecting point beyond it, (for hearing speech was now out of the question,) indicated that there lay his farther passage.

Morton gazed at her with surprise; for, although he well knew that the persecu-