To Quentin it seemed that his bodily strength and bulk had increased, for drill and marching had developed every muscle to the fullest extent; thus he was stronger, more active and hardy than before. He felt too, that the time had come when youth was no longer a libel against him; the time for doing something worthy of being mentioned in a despatch of the commander-in-chief, in the government gazette, in general orders--something gallant, manly, and dashing; and that he would turn the occasion to its best account, and achieve something glorious, "or," as romances and melo-dramas have it, "perish in the attempt." "If I acquit myself well in this, my first duty, it shall in itself prove a revenge upon Cosmo!" thought he. And so he trod manfully and hopefully on, dreaming of the future, knowing but little of the path he was at present to pursue, and less of the perils and pit-falls that were around it. As the evening deepened into night with great rapidity, for there is very little twilight in those regions--the mighty shadows of the sierra fell eastward in a sombre mass across the valley through which lay the road--a mere bridle path--towards the Spanish frontier, while the ranges of peaks that faced the west were still glowing in ruddy saffron or pale purple against the blue dome of the star-studded sky. About twelve miles from Portalegre, the road pursued by Quentin enters a narrow gorge or immense chasm or cleft which rends the mountains from their summit to their base. Down the steep wall of rock on one side, a spring trickles for some hundred feet, and at the foot, near the road-way, it is received into the quaintly carved basin of an ancient stone fountain, behind which stands a memorial cross. A niche in the shaft of the latter contains a little wayside altar. An image of the Madonna was rudely and gaudily painted in the recess, and before it a copper lamp was always kept burning. This shrine, once reputed to be of great sanctity, had been mutilated and its lamp destroyed by the French; but it had been replaced by another, which was always supplied with wick and oil by the passing muleteers, contrabandists, guerillas, and others. The rays of this lamp were burning feebly in the vast rocky solitude, forming a strange and picturesque feature in the deep dark dell, the silence of which was broken only by the plash of the slender thread of liquid that filtered or trickled down the granite face of the dissevered mountain. This cross and well had been built by Alphonso I., in the year that he achieved his greatest victory over the united arms of five Moorish sovereigns. It had been deemed holy even in those days, for there he had halted and prayed when on the march with his mail-clad knights to the capture of Santarem; and an inscription, frequently renewed, invited the passer to say a prayer for the repose of his soul, and the souls of all the good and true Portuguese who drew their swords against the Moslem.