"There!" she cried, as a vivid flash gave the remarkable rock, with its crown of towers to their view; while the flickering movement of the lightning seemed, as it were, to lift this principal object from its distant position in the landscape, hold it for a second close to their sight, then drop it into the impenetrable abyss, over which the thunder now rolled in darkness.
"That is it!" continued Lady Arden, her outstretched finger also for the moment rendered visible; "you mean that small projecting tower, which is called the eagle's nest, do you not?"
"Yes, that little turret, jutting-out from the side of the highest of the great towers near the top, and appearing from here not larger than a hand lantern. He must, I should think," he added, "from his present position discern the light in this window."
"Ah, my poor Alfred!" exclaimed the anxious mother. Another flash made the group of ruins and small projecting turret again for a second visible; "if he could have been with us here!" she continued: but the loud thunder rolled, and the hurricane, as her voice issued from her lips, swept its sounds away unheard! The next moment of comparative quiet Mr. Cameron said, in reply to the portion of the sentence he had caught—
"It would have been unwise; for, had he been in this house, some of the servants must have known, or at least have suspected the fact; now the secret of his place of concealment is known only to ourselves."
"You are right—you are right! And we know that there is a fell tiger couching for the prey."
"Perhaps we judge him harshly," replied Cameron. "I think, however," he added, "that we have adopted altogether the very best possible course. But for the extraordinary state of the atmosphere, there should be already some daylight, so that any attempt to quit the neighbourhood before evening again closes in would be madness. Nothing can be more complete, nor at the same time more comfortable, than the place of concealment we have selected; a spot, too, on which you can keep a constant watch without causing any suspicion, the only accessible approach to the ruins being visible from this very window."
While he yet spoke, the grey morning began to dawn. The storm was now gradually lessening, for though the last flash of the lightning had been vivid, the last roll of the thunder had been distant, and the rain had fallen somewhere else. As the dim light increased, therefore, the park, which in fact bounded the whole prospect, presented a most extraordinary aspect; so dense a white, low laying, and still moving mist, covered every ordinary object, that, as far as the eye could reach the landscape resembled one vast ocean, terminated only by the horizon; while the ruined castle crowning its rocky eminence, being by its great elevation lifted above the fog, appeared alone on the surface of this seeming sea, like the solitary Ark of the Covenant, riding on the waters of the Deluge!
Such, at least, was the sublime idea it suggested to the imagination of Lady Arden, while viewing it with the grateful feelings of the moment, as the refuge of her child.