Clasping her hands, and internally summoning up all her resolution, she advanced with a sort of desperate determination. Having arrived within some forty yards of the spot before alluded to, the outlines of a gigantic figure could easily be discerned as his footfalls were distinctly heard moving restlessly to and fro on a sort of platform or level space, left by nature or formed by art, in the side of the hill. His head towered far above the stunted undergrowth, interspersed among the rugged outlines of the scene. And as he impatiently measured the narrow limits of this outer court to his castle, he seemed not unlike a chafed and hungry monarch of the forest when making the narrow rounds of his iron bound limits. Having gone thus far, she was sensible that it was nearly as bad to recede as go forward, and that if she retreated now upon the very eve of the fulfilment of all that Bacon had promised, her past anxieties would have been endured for nothing: she braced her nerves therefore, and endeavoured to subdue the overpowering terror which the distant view of this strange and mysterious man had excited. Summoning all her resolution for one desperate effort, she threw herself forward and fell at the feet of the huge mortal, who stood apparently astounded at the abrupt appearance of his unwonted and untimely visiter. When Virginia found courage enough to raise her lately closed eyes, she was not a little astonished to see him leaning against the stone walls of his cell, no less agitated than herself. He was apparently about sixty years of age, his hair slightly silvered, and his features worn and weatherbeaten, yet eminently handsome. His person was very remarkable, being about six feet and a half in height and perfectly proportioned. His dress conformed in some degree to the military fashions of the day, having however rather the appearance of undress than full uniform. The expression of his countenance was decidedly intellectual; and about the lower part of his face there were some indications of a disposition to sensuality, but tempered and controlled in no ordinary degree by some other fierce and controlling passion. His eye was wild and unsettled at times, and again assumed the mild serenity of the profound student. Altogether, his presence was intellectual and commanding in the highest degree.