Helen could not withdraw her eyes from his varying countenance, which, from underneath his dark plumes, seemed like a portentous cloud, at intervals to emit the rays of the cheering sun, or the lightning of threatening thunder. "Alas!" replied she, "ill should I repay such nobleness were I to involve it in the calamities of my house. No, generous stranger, I must remain unknown. Leave me with the hermit; and from his cell I will send to some relation to take me thence." "I urge you no more, gentle lady," replied the knight, rising; "were I at the head of an army, instead of a handful of men, I might then have a better argument for offering my services; but as it is, I feel my weakness, and seek to know no further." Helen trembled with unaccountable emotion. "Were you at the head of an army, I might then dare to reveal the full weight of my anxieties; but Heaven has already been sufficiently gracious to me by your hands, in redeeming me from my cruelest enemy; and for the rest, I put my trust in the same overruling Providence." At this moment a man entered and told the knight the vehicle was finished, the morning fine, and his men ready to march. He turned toward Helen: "May I conduct you to the rude carriage we have prepared?" Helen gathered her mantle about her; and the knight, throwing his scarf over her head--it had no other covering--she gave him her hand, and he led her out on the hut to the side of the bier. It was overlaid with the men's plaids. The knight placed her on it; and the carriers raising it on their shoulders, her deliverer led the way, and they took their course down the mountain. Chapter XVI. The Glen of Stones. They proceeded in silence through the curvings of the dell till it opened into a hazardous path along the top of a far-extending cliff, which overhung and clasped in the western side of a deep loch. As they mounted the pending wall of this immense amphitheater, Helen watched the sublime uprise of the king of light issuing from behind the opposite citadel of rocks, and borne aloft on a throne of clouds that swam in floating gold. The herbage on the cliffs glittered with liquid emeralds, as his beams kissed their summits; and the lake beneath sparkled like a sea of molten diamonds. All nature seemed to rejoice at the presence of this magnificent emblem of the Most High. Helen's heart swelled with devotion, and its sacred voice breathed from her lips. "Such," thought she, "O sun, art thou! The resplendent image of the Giver of all Good. Thy cheering beams, like his all-cheering Spirit, pervade the soul, and drive thence the despondency of cold and darkness. But bright as thou art, how does the similitude fade before godlike man, the true image of his Maker. How far do his protecting arms extend over the desolate! How mighty is the power of his benevolence to dispense succor, to administer consolation!"