"We shall have to bide siege," he said to his companion. "I knew not that these fierce creatures mustered so thickly here."
"Heaven be our protection!" said the maiden. "They fill every recess of the forest. I had left my mother's this evening for but an instant—'twas in quest of a tame fawn—when the monster from whose murderous fangs you delivered me, started up between me and my home; and I had to fly from instant destruction into the thick of the forest."
"And so your place of residence is quite at hand?" said Clelland. "In the course of a long day's journey, I have not met with a single human habitation."
"The hermitage," replied the maiden, "is but a short half-mile from my mother's—would that we were but safe there!"
As she spoke, the howling of the wolves burst out again, in frightful chorus, from above, and at least a score of the ravenous animals came leaping down over the rock, brushing in their descent the ivy and the underwood. Clelland couched his spear, so that nothing could enter by the narrow doorway without encountering its sharp point. But the wolves came not to the attack; and their yells and howlings from the hollow of the rock, blent with the terrified snortings and pawings of poor Biscay, shewed that they were bent on an easier conquest, and bulkier, though less noble prey. The animal, in his first struggle, broke loose from his fastenings, and went galloping madly past; and an intensely bright flash of lightning, that illumined the whole scene of terror without, shewed him in the act of straining up the opposite bank, with a huge wolf fastened to his lacerated back, and closely pursued by full twenty more.
It was, in truth, a night of dread and terror. Towards morning, however, the storm gradually sunk into a calm as dead as that which had preceded it, and a clear, starry sky looked down on the again silent forest. The maiden, now that there was less of danger, was rendered thoroughly unhappy by thoughts of her mother. She had left her, she said, but for an instant—left her solitary in her dwelling; and how must she have passed so terrible a night! Clelland strove to quiet her fears. There was a little cloud in the east, he said, already reddening on its lower edge; in an hour longer, it would be broad day, and he could then conduct her to her mother's.
"You have not always worn such a dress as that which you now wear," he continued; "nor have you spent all your days on the edge of the forest. Does your father still live?"
There was a pause for a moment.
"I am a native of France," she at length said; "but I have passed most of my time in other countries. My father, in fulfilment of a vow, is now bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine."