he
was admitted by an old woman, who, understanding he was a bewildered
traveller, received him with great hospitality.

When he learned from his hostess, that there was not another house within
three leagues; that she could accommodate him with a tolerable bed, and
his horse with lodging and oats, he thanked Heaven for his good fortune,
in stumbling upon this homely habitation, and determined to pass the
night under the protection of the old cottager, who gave him to
understand, that her husband, who was a faggot-maker, had gone to the next
town to dispose of his merchandise; and that, in all probability, he
would not return till next morning, on account of the tempestuous night.
Ferdinand sounded the beldame with a thousand artful interrogations, and
she answered with such appearance of truth and simplicity, that he
concluded his person was quite secure; and, after having been regaled
with a dish of eggs and bacon, desired she would conduct him into the
chamber where she proposed he should take his repose. He was accordingly
ushered up by a sort of ladder into an apartment furnished with a
standing-bed, and almost half filled with trusses of straw. He seemed
extremely well pleased with his lodging, which in reality exceeded his
expectation; and his kind landlady, cautioning him against letting the
candle approach the combustibles, took her leave, and locked the door on
the outside.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HE FALLS UPON SCYLLA, SEEKING TO AVOID CHARYBDIS.

Fathom, whose own principles taught him to be suspicious, and ever upon
his guard against the treachery of his fellow-creatures, could have
dispensed with this instance of her care, in confining her guest to her
chamber, and began to be seized with strange fancies, when he observed
that there was no bolt on the inside of the door, by which he might
secure himself from intrusion. In consequence of these suggestions, he
proposed to take an accurate survey of every object in the apartment,
and, in the course of his inquiry, had the mortification to find the dead
body of a man, still warm, who had been lately stabbed, and concealed
beneath several bundles of straw.

Such a discovery could not fail to fill the breast of our hero with
unspeakable horror; for he concluded that he himself would undergo the
same fate before morning, without the interposition of a miracle in his
favour. In the first transports of his dread, he ran to the window, with
a view to