"Sir Reginald will have the first brush; see you how he is urging on his horse?" said the knight. "But, look, what is yonder? In sooth it resembles the vast, glittering back of a dragon weltering across our path!"

"Ha, Madonna! it is the edge of the cataract! Hist, sir knight! the uproar drowns my voice, and the thick-headed barbarian is making his horse capriole!" exclaimed the canon, clasping his hands. "He will be dashed to pieces; it falls to such a depth that it is lost in foam long ere it reaches the rock below!"

But the Hospitaller listened only to the first words of this warning, and dashing the spurs into his horse compelled it to gallop forward through the whirling waters, to the rescue of his brother-in-arms. As he approached, however, he discerned that it was not carelessness which was conducting the young knight as it seemed to inevitable destruction. His steed, terrified to madness with the uproar, was struggling furiously to break away, and in the contest for the mastery was rapidly getting down to where the smooth eel-like flow of the wave denoted the great depth of its current ere it overleaped the precipices in a cataract. In vain did the knight endeavour to control the furious animal's violence, while his fearless spirit, and perhaps the danger of sinking under the weight of his arms in the waters, hindered him from seeking safety by leaping off. The destruction of the youthful chevalier seemed inevitable, when, as if sent by some direct and miraculous interposition, a tall

figure garbed as a Dominican monk rushed into the stream before it, whence no one could discern, and seizing the horse's head with mighty force, rather hurled than drove it headlong back on its haunches, and after a struggle as it seemed of main strength, compelled it to halt.

CHAPTER IV.

"I blame not him who discredits, for indeed, with the proof in my hand, myself could doubt it."-Truth's Troubles.

"GRAMERCY, our Lady!-Gramercy, good sir monk ! fie, to be a monk with an arm like thine, which could bear down a stand of pikes," exclaimed Sir Reginald, panting for breath, and unclasping his gorget. "My cousin, fair Alice, must surely be praying for me now, to bring thee so in the very nick."

"Your horse, sir knight, is in this instance the wiser animal of the two; he feels the danger coming," replied the monk, hurriedly. "The torrentwind! the torrent-wind!-call to your companions to make to the shelter of the rocks on this side, for I see it is tearing up the water along the whole line of the river to the left."

Singular as was this intimation, the commanding tones and gestures of the monk induced Le Beaufort to act as if he clearly understood the nature of the approaching danger. He shouted and waived to his friends to quit the centre of the stream, and join him behind the projecting rocks, to which the Dominican had forced his courser to retreat. They had barely time to act upon the counsel, ere a rushing roar,

louder than the noise of the cataract, which seemed as if the mountains were rending in an earthquake, broke upon their hearing. Rider and horse stiffened alike with amazement and terror, for while the air where they stood was scarcely sufficient to lift the manes of their horses, a whirlwind of prodigious violence, which must have hurried them over the abyss, had they stood in its line of advance, roared along the left shore of the river, and drove the waters before it like a herd of snow-white bulls rushing over each other in mad confusion. Wind and waves

thundered on to the edge of the cataract, where a singular phenomenon, sometimes observed in the mountainous regions of the north, took place. The wind, pursuing its impetuous career over the torrent, cleared away the mist which overhung it, in a circle, and for a few moments revealed a scene of great beauty and grandeur. The torrent might be seen foaming wildly down among vast rocks, until it reached the bed of a river which flowed through a narrow but richly wooded valley formed by an amphitheatre of rocks, the bases in their turn of mountains which towered above, until lost in blue sublimity. The amphitheatre opening directly in front, revealed an immense plain, bounded only by the Mediterranean, the waters of which were distinctly visible, rolling of a dark violet hue against the bright line of the

sunset.

Midway down the ravine, through which the torrent thundered, although the eye at first scarcely noticed it, the rocks projected and receded in such a manner as to allow space and verge for the monastery

of which our travellers were in search. A wall running round the edge of some cliffs, and two old gray towers, were all that was visible of it among the windings of the rocks, and the shadows of the overhanging pine and beech trees. A bridge formed by a single arch, bare and undefended, spanned a narrow neck which the opposite cliffs formed below the monastery, and no other means of approach could be discerned. But the whole landscape vanished almost immediately, for when the whirlwind had passed, the mists again arose in their cloudy masses.

"They will feel this wind, ere many hours elapse, on the sea," said the Dominican, as if following with his gaze the career of the tempestuous visitor.

"The Holy Virgin have pity on mariners then," said Le Beaufort, crossing himself.

"And on all men; all need it," returned the monk.

Surely the devil rode in it, with his whole sabbath of witches," continued the astonished English knight. "But how, brother, by what rare gift did you behold this wind coming?"

"Nay, 'tis a four-footed beast that sees the wind," replied the monk, somewhat churlishly, for he spoke without the least appearance of jocularity.

"Holds the proverb true of your red Italian pig?" said the knight, good-naturedly smiling. "Howbeit, I am your debtor, and I pray you take this gold chain of thirty links, and hang it on your holiest shrine, an offering from Reginald Le Beaufort. Nay, 'tis no unlawful plunder, but a reward given me by the noble Duke of Ferrara that day his son and I kept the