Now and again he would halt and give a hail in the hope of attracting the attention of the wandering brother officer he was seeking. Unexpectedly his hail was answered—almost at his elbow. The intonation was not English, and Duckworth swung round, pistol in hand, to find himself face to face with a Spanish priest. The stranger’s bearing was refined, his manner courteous, his voice cultured, his features handsome and prepossessing. Nevertheless, Duckworth decided out of hand that the man was a scoundrel, and that he was in that strange place at that strange hour for some sinister purpose. Not even when, after a few words of salutation, the priest offered his poor hospitality for the night and his services as guide in the morning, did he modify his opinion. He hated Spanish priests. ‘’Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil’; and when a grown man is offered the choice between a desperately certain deep sea of night, on storm-swept, brigand-haunted hills, and shelter with a prejudicate devil, the alternative is not difficult of decision. With fair words on his lips and mistrust in his heart, Duckworth permitted himself to be guided by the priest. The way led sharply upwards; then once and again twisted smartly between colonnades of fantastic spikes of limestone, and so on, through a path, or rather alley, over-roofed with interlacing boughs of tangled trees. Emerging from the wood, they found themselves in a towering amphitheatre of rock, sheer or overhanging, broken by little terraces of vivid green, and with here and there a yew or birch or mountain ash growing out of the crevices. It recalled to the Major a place he had once seen in his own country—a mighty rift in the scarp of the great Craven Fault, Gordale Scar. For a moment he stood gazing upwards, overawed by the grandeur and the gloomy majesty of it. ‘We are here!’ It was the priest who spoke, and at the sound of the voice Duckworth started, then laughed foolishly. Here! This was anchorite hospitality indeed. He looked round through the increasing darkness in the hope of finding so much as a cave. The priest laughed also, and pointed ahead to where a low barrier of limestone stretched across the gorge. At first sight it appeared part of the parent cliff, but closer inspection showed it to be strangely regular in outline. It was in fact the wall of a considerable building, and a second glance sufficed to recognise it as such, although an attempt had been made to emphasise its resemblance to its surroundings by piling broken rock along the top of the wall and leaving the edges ragged. Again the priest laughed, and, taking Duckworth by the arm, led him onwards, and so through an opening—which even scrutiny might have mistaken for the entrance to a cave—to the interior.