After looking around in fruitless amazement, they perceived a small door opposite to that by which they had entered. It communicated with a back staircase, and was open. As they approached it, they discovered the traces of footsteps that appeared to be those of a person who had been walking in damp sand or clay. These traces were exceedingly plain--they followed them to a door that opened on the garden--that door was open also. They traced the foot-marks distinctly through the narrow gravel walk, which was terminated by a broken fence, and opened on a heathy field which spread half-way up a rock whose summit overlooked the sea. The weather had been rainy, and they could trace the steps distinctly through that heathy field. They ascended the rock together. Early as it was, the cottagers, who were poor fishermen residing on the shore, were all up, and assuring Melmoth and his companion that they had been disturbed and terrified the preceding night by sounds which they could not describe. It was singular that these men, accustomed by nature and habit alike to exaggeration and superstition, used not the language of either on this occasion. There is an overwhelming mass of conviction that falls on the mind, that annihilates idiom and peculiarities, and crushes out truth from the heart. Melmoth waved back all who offered to accompany him to the precipice which over-hung the sea. Monçada alone followed him. Through the furze that clothed this rock, almost to its summit, there was a kind of tract as if a person had dragged, or been dragged, his way through it--a down-trodden track, over which no footsteps but those of one impelled by force had ever passed. Melmoth and Monçada gained at last the summit of the rock. The ocean was beneath--the wide, waste, engulphing ocean! On a crag beneath them, something hung as floating to the blast. Melmoth clambered down and caught it. It was the handkerchief which the Wanderer had worn about his neck the preceding night--that was the last trace of the Wanderer! Melmoth and Monçada exchanged looks of silent and unutterable horror, and returned slowly home. FINIS. JOHN PILLANS, Printer, Edinburgh. Transcriber’s Note: The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXIII. thus Pliny writeth, “_Apparebat eidolon senex, macie et senie thus Pliny writeth, “_Apparebat eidolon senex, macie et senio CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIV. steps she heard the sound of steps pursuing her.” steps she heard the sound of steps pursuing her. As they approached, in spite of the darkness of the night, the ruin “As they approached, in spite of the darkness of the night, the ruin behind a cloud, and every thing was enveloped in darknesss so profound, behind a cloud, and every thing was enveloped in darkness so profound,