At the same time a man--the bearded peasant before-mentioned--who had been concealed among some laurel-bushes, and had overheard the parting, crept stealthily away, with an expression on his face that would have startled Cecil had he seen it. 'To what end, or to what useful or wise purpose, under all the circumstances, can this assignation be? and in such a lonely place?' he thought. 'But what could I say--how decline the last request of one to whom I owe so much?' Yet he wished it all well over, and anticipated, with genuine British dismay, something of a painful scene. The night was passed by his troopers peacefully in the solitude of the wood referred to, under the stars. Morning came in bright with ruddy sunshine, and after such a humble repast as soldiers prepare under such circumstances, Cecil ordered them to unbit and unsaddle their horses, groom them, and re-examine all their ammunition--not all at once, but by fours at a time--and after patrolling the woods in the vicinity, and finding all quiet, he halted them again in the wood, and set forth to keep his appointment at the chapel, which was on a rocky steep about a mile from it. He crossed the Morava by an ancient bridge, supposed to be the work of Roman hands, and began to ascend the steep and rocky bank that overhung it, till he overlooked the windings of the river and the woods that half-concealed them, and attained the summit of a species of pass in which stood the wayside chapel--merely a rough species of altar, whereon was painted a rude and half-defaced effigy, surmounted by a projecting pediment or roof of red tiles. Masses of wild vines flourished in luxuriance all around it, with other creepers, and from amid these there peered grotesquely forth--with its metal halo sorely faded--the effigy, which was supposed to represent the Servian _Krall_, Lazar, who was taken prisoner in the last great battle on the plains of Kossava (which ended in the subjugation of Servia), and whose relics, after his murder in the camp of the Sultan Amurath, have wrought so many miracles, according to the superstition of his country, and now lie in the monastery of Ravenitza, which he founded; but Cecil thought nothing of all this, and probably knew nothing about it, as he looked about him anxiously and in haste for Margarita. It was past the time of noon now; but she was not there. A sheer cliff of vast height, the base of which could not be seen, descended on one side; on the other was the narrow walk by which he had mounted to the wayside chapel. He heard no sound but the voices of the birds, and he looked in vain for her figure--her drapery floating between the stems of the trees. Why had she failed to keep her tryst? a kind of keen disappointment occurred to him now; he looked at his watch again. Time was long past now, and he thought of his troopers and the homeward march to Deligrad!