ll around us is populous with beings, now invisible to us as this
circling air."...

The moon was down and the sky overcast when they began to wind among the
rocks. Though Paul's walks had lain of late in this direction, he was
not enough acquainted with the passage to find his way through it in
the dark. Abel, who had traversed it often in the night, alone and in
terror, now took heart at having some one with him at such an hour, and
offered unhesitatingly to lead. "The boy winds round those crags with
the speed and ease of a stream," said Paul; "not so fast, Abel."

"Take hold of the root which shoots out over your head, sir, for 'tis
ticklish work getting along just here. Do you feel it, sir?"

"I have hold," said Paul.

"Let yourself gently down by it, sir. You needn't be a bit afraid, for
'twill not give way; man couldn't have fastened it stronger."

This was the first time Abel had felt his power, or had been of
consequence to any one, since the boys had turned him out from their
games; and it gave him a momentary activity, and an unsettled sort of
spirit, which he had never known since then. He had been shunned and
abhorred; and he believed himself the victim of some demoniac power. To
have another in this fearful bondage with him, as Paul had intimated,
was a relief from his dreadful solitariness in his terrors and
sufferings. "And he said that it was I who was to work a curse on him,"
muttered Abel. "It cannot be, surely, that such a thing as I am can harm
a man like him!" And though Abel remembered Paul's kindness, and that
this was to seal his own doom too, yet it stirred the spirit of pride
within him.

"What are you muttering to yourself, there in the dark," demanded Paul;
"or whom talk you with, you withered wretch?" Abel shook in every joint
at the sound of Paul's harsh voice.

"It is so dreadfully still here," said Abel; "I hear nothing but your
steps behind me, and they make me start." This was true; for
notwithstanding his touch of instant pride, his terrors and his fear of
Paul were as great as ever.

"Speak louder then," said Paul, "or hold your peace. I like not your
muttering; it bodes no good."

"It may bring a curse to you, worse than that on me, if a worse can be,"
said Abel to himself; "but who can help it?"

Day broke before they cleared the ridge; a drizzling rain came on; and
the wind, beginning to rise, drove through the crevices in the rocks
with sharp whistling sounds which se