The rebels, forced to stretch their columns over this crooked road compressed between two mountains, continued their march. They penetrated those dark valleys without lighting a torch, without uttering a sound. The very sound of their footsteps was unheard amid the deafening crash of waterfalls and the roar of a furious blast which bowed the Druidical woods, and drove the clouds in eddying whirls about tall peaks clad in snow and ice. Lost in the dark depths of the gorge, the light of the moon, which was veiled now and again, did not reach the heads of their pikes, and the white eagles flying overhead did not guess that so vast a multitude of men was troubling their solitude. Once old Guldon Stayper touched Kennybol’s shoulder with the butt-end of his carbine, saying, “Captain, Captain, something glimmers behind that tuft of holly and broom.” “So it does,” replied the mountain chief; “it is the water of the stream reflecting the clouds.” And they passed on. Again Guldon grasped his leader quickly by the arm. “Look!” he said; “are not those muskets, shining yonder in the shadow of that rock?” Kennybol shook his head; then, after looking attentively, he said, “Never fear, brother Guldon; it is a moonbeam falling on an icy peak.” No further cause for alarm appeared, and the various bands, as they marched quietly through the winding gorge, insensibly forgot all the danger of their position. After two hours of often painful progress, over the treetrunks and granite bowlders which blocked the road, the vanguard entered the mountainous group of pine-trees at the end of Black Pillar Pass, overhung by high, black, moss-grown cliffs. Guldon Stayper approached Kennybol, declaring that he was delighted that they were at last almost out of this cursed cut-throat place, and that they must render thanks to Saint Sylvester that the Black Pillar had not been fatal to them. Kennybol laughed, swearing that he had never shared such old-womanish fears; for with most men, when danger is over it ceases to exist, and they try to prove by their incredulity the courage which they perhaps failed to display before. At this moment two small round lights, like two live coals, moving in the thick underwood, attracted his attention. “By my soul’s salvation!” he whispered, pulling Guldon’s arm, “see; those two blazing eyes must surely belong to the fiercest wildcat that ever mewed in a thicket.” “You are right,” replied old Stayper; “and if he were not marching in front of us, I should rather think that they were the wicked eyes of the demon of Ice--” “Hush!” cried Kennybol. Then, seizing his carbine, he added, “Truly, it shall not be said that such fine game passed before Kennybol in vain.” The shot was fired before Guldon Stayper, who threw himself upon the rash hunter, could prevent it. It was not the shrill cry of a wildcat that answered the discharge of the gun; it was the fearful howl of a tiger, followed by a burst of human laughter more frightful still.