A long ray of light shed by the rising moon, shone down the cleft at the bottom of which the road lay, casting the shadows of the well and votive cross far along the narrow gorge. The thick foliage of some gigantic Portuguese laurels, which grew in the interstices of the rocks, glittered like bronze gemmed with silver sheen, and offered a resting place for the night; so Quentin, as he felt weary, crept under the branches, which formed a pleasant shelter. The turf below was soft and dry, and to him, who had slept so often on the bare earth during his march to the frontier, it seemed a comfortable couch enough. The shaft of King Alphonso's cross on one side and the wall of rock on the other protected him from prowling wolves in the front and rear; the stems of the giant laurels formed barrier on a third side, and the fourth, which was open, he might defend with his weapons if attacked. He took a draught from his canteen, which was filled with rum and water, and placing it under his head for a pillow, with his sword and loaded pistols ready by his side, he addressed himself to sleep. The air was filled with a strange but delicious perfume, which came from those little aromatic shrubs that grow wild everywhere throughout Spain and Portugal. The intense stillness of the place, the only sounds there being the trickle of the far-falling water and the croakings of some bull-frogs among the long grass, made him wakeful for a time. He felt neither alarm nor anxiety, but utterly lonely, and he said over a prayer that in infancy he had often repeated at Lady Rohallion's knee; then something holy and placid stole over his heart; sleep at last closed his eyes and he slumbered peacefully besides the old stone cross of our Lady of Battles. So passed the first night of his absence from head-quarters. When Quentin awoke next morning after a long and sound slumber, the result of youth, high health, and the toil of the past day, though he had acquired all a soldier's facility for sleeping in strange places and strange beds, or without other couch than the bare sod, he was at first somewhat confused and puzzled on perceiving the bower of leaves above him, and a minute elapsed before he could remember where he was, and how he came to be roosting under those huge Portuguese laurels. Then the despatch rushed upon his memory; he searched his breast pocket, and found the important document was safe; his weapons were all right, and he was about to creep forth, when he suddenly perceived the figure of a man near the well, and, remembering the reiterated advices of Askerne and others, he paused to observe him.