logue went forward, Bertram and Dinmont had both gained the
interior of the cave and assumed an erect position. The only light which
illuminated its rugged and sable precincts was a quantity of wood burnt
to charcoal in an iron grate, such as they use in spearing salmon by
night. On these red embers Hatteraick from time to time threw a handful
of twigs or splintered wood; but these, even when they blazed up,
afforded a light much disproportioned to the extent of the cavern; and,
as its principal inhabitant lay upon the side of the grate most remote
from the entrance, it was not easy for him to discover distinctly objects
which lay in that direction. The intruders, therefore, whose number was
now augmented unexpectedly to three, stood behind the loosely-piled
branches with little risk of discovery. Dinmont had the sense to keep
back Hazlewood with one hand till he whispered to Bertram, 'A
friend--young Hazlewood.'

It was no time for following up the introduction, and they all stood as
still as the rocks around them, obscured behind the pile of brushwood,
which had been probably placed there to break the cold wind from the sea,
without totally intercepting the supply of air. The branches were laid so
loosely above each other that, looking through them towards the light of
the fire-grate, they could easily discover what passed in its vicinity,
although a much stronger degree of illumination than it afforded would
not have enabled the persons placed near the bottom of the cave to have
descried them in the position which they occupied.

The scene, independent of the peculiar moral interest and personal danger
which attended it, had, from the effect of the light and shade on the
uncommon objects which it exhibited, an appearance emphatically dismal.
The light in the fire-grate was the dark-red glare of charcoal in a state
of ignition, relieved from time to time by a transient flame of a more
vivid or duskier light, as the fuel with which Dirk Hatteraick fed his
fire was better or worse fitted for his purpose. Now a dark cloud of
stifling smoke rose up to the roof of the cavern, and then lighted into a
reluctant and sullen blaze, which flashed wavering up the pillar of
smoke, and was suddenly rendered brighter and more lively by some drier
fuel, or perhaps some splintered fir-timber, which at once converted the
smoke into flame. By such fitful irradiation they could see, more or less
distinctly, the form of Hatteraick, whose