"No. There is no habitation of any kind within three miles."
No more was said. It was not very easy to talk while flying through the air at the utmost speed of a spirited horse.
The moon bathed the broad moorland in mellow light. The wide expanse of level turf looked like a sea of black water that had suddenly been frozen into stillness. Not a tree—not a patch of brushwood, or a solitary bush—broke the monotony of the scene: but far away against the moonlit horizon rose a wild and craggy steep, and on the summit of that steep appeared a massive tower, with black and ruined battlements, that stood out grimly against the luminous sky.
This was Yarborough Tower—a stronghold that had defied many a besieging force in the obscure past; but of the origin of which little was now known.
Victor Carrington drove the gig up a rough and narrow road that curved around the sides of the craggy hill, and wound gradually towards the top.
He was obliged to drive slowly here, and Lady Eversleigh had ample leisure to gaze upwards at the dreary-looking ruin, whose walls seemed more densely black as they grew nearer and nearer.
"What a horrible place!" she murmured. "To think of my husband lying there—with no better shelter than those ruined walls in the hour of his suffering."
Honoria Eversleigh looked around her with a shudder, as the gig passed across a narrow wooden drawbridge that spanned an enormous chasm in the craggy hill-side.
She looked up at the tower. All was dark, and the dismal cry of a raven suddenly broke the awful stillness with a sound that was even yet more awful.
"Why are there no lights in the windows?" she asked; "surely Sir Oswald is not lying in the darkness?"