When Waverley sallied forth
to the entrance of the cave, he perceived that the point of rock, on
which remained the marks of last night's beacon, was accessible by
a small path, either natural, or roughly hewn in the rock, along the
little inlet of water which ran a few yards up into the cavern, where,
as in a wet-dock, the skiff which brought him there the night before
was still lying moored. When he reached the small projecting platform
on which the beacon had been established, he would have believed his
further progress by land impossible, only that it was scarce probable
but that the inhabitants of the cavern had some mode of issuing from it
otherwise than by the lake. Accordingly, he soon observed three or four
shelving steps, or ledges of rock, at the very extremity of the little
platform; and, making use of them as a staircase, he clambered by their
means around the projecting shoulder of the crag on which the cavern
opened, and, descending with some difficulty on the other side, he
gained the wild and precipitous shores of a Highland loch, about four
miles in length, and a mile and a half across, surrounded by heathy
and savage mountains, on the crests of which the morning mist was still
sleeping.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199