Before long they turned sharply to the left up a rutted and stony cart-track, which apparently led right into the heart of the moors. Here they could only go slowly, trusting in a great measure to the instinct and surefootedness of their horses. The highwayman still kept hold of the other's bridle. The rain had in some measure abated, and a rift in the clouds low down in the east was slowly broadening. Not a word had passed between them since they left the plantation. But now, as if the silence had become irksome to him, the man with the crape mask burst into song. His voice was a full, clear baritone: "Oh, kiss me, Childe Lovel," she breathes in his ear; "Night's shadows flee fast, the moon's drown'd in the mere." He turns his head slowly. "Christ! what is't I see? A demon rides with me!" shrieks Ellen O'Lee. When he had come to the end of the verse, he drew forth his snuff-box, tapped it, opened it, and with a little bow proffered it to his companion. The moon had come out again, dim and watery, by this time, and they were now enabled to see each other so far as outlines and movements were concerned, although the more minute points of each other's appearance were still to some extent conjectural. "_Bien oblige, monsieur_," replied the younger man, "but snuff-taking is an acquirement--I ought, perhaps, to say an accomplishment--to which as yet I cannot lay claim, and, in so far, my education may be said to be incomplete." "'Tis a necessary part of a gentleman's curriculum--a pinch of Rappee or good Kendal Brown serves at once to soothe the nerves, disperse the vapors, and enliven the brain. But you are young yet, my dear sir--_oh, les beaux jours de la jeunesse!_--and, with luck, have many years before you for the cultivation of a habit which, unlike other habits I could name, the older you grow the more quiet satisfaction you derive from the practice of it. Amid the straits and disappointments of life, when his fortunes are at their lowest, and his fair-weather friends have fallen one by one away, many a man draws his truest consolation from his snuff-box." "You speak like one grown old both in years and experience," said the other laughingly. He was recovering his _sang-froid_, and, the failure of his enterprise notwithstanding, was beginning to enjoy the adventure for the adventure's sake. The highwayman gave vent to an audible sigh. "Experience keeps a dear school," he said, "and 'tis only fools who fail to learn at it." And so for a time they rode on in silence. Then said the younger man, "You seem to know your way hereabouts pretty well." "The home of my youth was no great distance away, and, as a lad, I wandered over these moors and fells till I grew to know them, as one might say, by heart." "Have we much farther to go, may I ask?" "Another ten minutes will bring us to our destination." With that he proceeded to remove his mask and stuff it into one of his pockets.