No sooner had they touched the bank with their feet than a huge billow like a mountain swept over the water. Immediately the swelling waves subsided, the rising foam vanished, and a great calm fell on the bosom of the lake. At the same moment Ernest felt his fear pass away, and it was succeeded by a feeling of courage against danger, mingled with a certain curiosity to see what was to come. After they had travelled a great distance they came to a wide moor that stretched to the verge of the horizon. This was perfectly level, save at one spot where tall black rocks were seen raising their heads towards the sky. About evening they reached these rocks, when they stopped and sat down to rest themselves. The scene was now grand and awful in the extreme. Around lay the dark desert heath, unenlivened by a single streak of verdure; its beautiful pink flowers were withered, and their fragrance had vanished. The mellow hum of the bee was no longer heard about them, for he had gathered his honey and was gone. Above rose the tremendous precipices whose vast shadows blackened all that portion of the moor, and deepened the frown upon the unpropitious face of nature. At intervals from the summit of the rocks shrill screams, uttered by some bird of prey which had built its nest upon them, swept through the arch of heaven in which wild clouds were careering to and fro as if torn by a horrible tempest. The sun had long since sunk to rest, and the full moon, like a broad shield dyed with blood, now ascended the stormy sky. A mournful halo surrounded her, and through that warning veil she looked from her place in the firmament, her glorious light dimmed and obscured, till the earth only knew by a faint ruddy tint that her white-robed handmaiden beheld her. All the attendant train of stars shone solemnly among the clouds, and by their abated splendour acknowledged the presence of their peerless queen.