Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 4).pdf/299

 Strange, also, it appeared to her, their rustic life and residence considered, that they should take such a season for rest, when she saw the vivid rays of the early sun piercing, through various crevices, into the apartment.

Raising her head, next, to view the door, which, the preceding night, had escaped her notice, she espied, close to its edge, a large clot of blood.

Struck with terrour, she started up; and then perceived that the passage from door to door was traced with bloody spots.

She remained for some minutes immovable, incapable either to think of her danger, or to form any plan for her preservation; and wholly absorbed by the image which this sight presented to her fears, of some victim to murderous rapacity.

Soon, however, rousing to a sense of her own situation, she determined upon making a new attempt to escape. She listened beneath the trap-door, to ascer-