"Welcome!--welcome!" cried he, starting wildly up, and speaking in a frantic tone, as he rushed forward to seize Inverawe's cold hand in both of his, that felt like heated iron,--"welcome, my guardian angel! All other good angels have fled from me now!--And the bad!--Oh!--But you will not leave me to-night?--Oh, say that you will not leave me to-night!" "I grieve to say, that, for your own sake, I cannot gratify you," replied Inverawe, withdrawing his hand involuntarily from the contamination of his touch, and shrinking back with horror from the glare of his phrenzied and blood-shot eyes, though with a heart almost moved to pity for the wretch before him, whose very manhood seemed to have abandoned him. "It is vain to ask me to stay with you, as I have already frequently explained to you; but much more so now, that I have learned that there are men out searching for you in this neighbourhood, brought hither by the strong conviction that you are concealed somewhere hereabouts. This circumstance renders it imperatively necessary that you should no longer persevere in the perilous practice of burning your lamp, which exposes you to tenfold danger." "Talk not to me of danger!" exclaimed the man, in a dreadful state of excitement, and in a tone and words that seemed more like those of a raving madman than anything else--"I must have light--I should go distracted if I had not light. Darkness would drive me to self-destruction! I tell you it is filled with horrible shapes. Even when I shut my eyes the horrible spectre appears. Have pity!--have mercy on me, and stay with me but this one single night!--for even the light of the lamp itself cannot always banish the terrific spectre from before me!" "Spectre!" cried Inverawe, shuddering with horror,--"what spectre?" "Aye, the horrible spectre," replied the man. And then suddenly starting back, with his hands stretched forth, as if to keep off some terrific shape that had instantaneously risen before him, and with his eye-balls glaring towards the dark opening of the cave, he shrieked out--"Hell and torments! 'tis there again,--there--there--see there!" "I see nothing," said Inverawe, with some difficulty retaining a proper command of himself. "But this is madness--absolute insanity. See, here is your food;--I must leave you immediately." "Oh, do not go!" said the stranger, following Inverawe for a few steps towards the mouth of the cave, and entreating him in a subdued and abject tone. And then, just as his protector was about to make his exit, he again started back, and stood as if he had been transfixed, whilst, with his hands stretched out before him, and his eyes fearfully staring on the vacancy of the darkness that was beyond the cavern's mouth, he again yelled out--"There! there!--see there!"