Inverawe, however, wound himself up to go through with that which he now considered as his last trial. Having filled his basket as before, he set off on his wonted circuitous route to the cave. As he went thither, he endeavoured to steel up his mind to assume that resolute tone with the stranger which he now felt to be absolutely necessary to rid himself of so troublesome and distressing a charge. Much as it did violence to his innate feelings of hospitality to come to any such determination, he resolved to insist on his departure from the cave that very night, and he had no difficulty in persuading himself that his doing this would be the best line of safety he could prescribe for the stranger, seeing that, by the active use of his limbs during the remaining portion of it, he might well enough reach some distant place of concealment before day-break. Full of such ideas, he pressed on towards the cave, that he might get him off with as little delay as possible. The light which had shone from its mouth upon former occasions was now absent, and Inverawe hailed the circumstance as a proof that the wretched man had at last become more rational. He approached the orifice in the cliff, and gently called him. His own voice alone was returned to him from the hollow bowels of the rock. All was so mysteriously silent, that an involuntary chill fell upon Inverawe. He repeated his call in a louder voice, but still there was no reply--no stir from within. A cold shudder crept over him, and for a moment he half expected to see issue from the black void before him, that appalling apparition which had now three several times appeared by his bedside. A little thought enabled him to get rid of this temporary weakness. He recalled the last words of the spectre, and the strange uncouth name of Ticonderoga. If such a place had existence at all, it was there, and there only, that he could expect to behold him again. He became reassured, and all his wonted manliness returned to him. He struck a light, and crept into the cave. A short survey of its interior satisfied him that the stranger was gone. The blanket, the extinguished lamp, and some other things lay there, but no other vestige of its recent inmate was to be seen. Inverawe felt relieved; he was saved from even the semblance of inhospitality. But the recollection of the apparition's last words recurred to him, and then every thing around him seemed to whisper him that indeed the time might now be past. He began, most inconsistently, to wish that the stranger had still been there--nay, he almost hoped that he might yet be lingering about the neighbouring rocks or thickets. He sallied forth from the cave, and abandoning all his former caution, he shouted twice or thrice in succession, at the very top of his voice, but without obtaining any response, except that which came from the echoes of the cliffs, muffled as they were by the roar of the numerous cataracts of the mountain side, and the howling blast