The more ignorant of the mountaineers--those who believed the ravine haunted--thought the mysterious individual superhuman in character, and shunned the locality as an abode of spirits. Ix encouraged this feeling and belief among them, so far as he could, though always very grateful to the few who were above such notions, and who were ever welcome visitors to his cavern home. The hermit could afford no better accommodations than skins thrown on the ground, as a protection, to sit on, and his visitors were seated in this manner. When they were comfortably settled, the anchorite said: "How is it with my wise friend--thyself, O Tezcot, and those who share with thee the bounteous favors which bless thy mountain home?" "It is well with us. And thou, O friend, hath good or evil come to make or mar thy peace, of late?" replied the hunter inquiringly. "My lonely life is seldom interrupted. Its simplicity could only lead to peace if the mind were less active. But who can say, O, mind, be still, and trouble not thyself with what is past, or what may come?" The hermit's words showed that he was not in his usual temper of mind. They indicated that his meditations sometimes disturbed him. On no previous occasion had Tezcot heard him intimate that disquieting recollections were ever present to interrupt the peacefulness of his lonely life. And yet, why not? The man had not always been a hermit. The surprise to Tezcot was in the yielding of his habitual restraint upon his speech, so far as to give utterance to such a thought. He did not immediately respond to the hermit, and, after a moment's pause, the latter continued: "You have come from the world of light, O Tezcot, and know much that is dark to Ix. If it please you, will you tell me something of what is passing there? How fares it with the people in the valley?" "Why should Ix, the hermit, who has gone from the world to find seclusion in a mountain fastness, seek knowledge concerning the people and of what is passing beyond? Does the anchorite tire of his lonely mountain cell, and long for a place among them, that he turns from his solitude to inquire after the people's welfare?" "Tezcot is wise, but he reads only from that which his eyes behold. There are sealed records from which even he can not read. Ix is one of these to all the world, yet not without his sorrows. Memory is not less bright because of the darkness which hides external things," rejoined the hermit, with deep pathos in his voice.