or
foot, one yielding of the roots entwined in the rock, must inevitably
have precipitated me; and, while my toes wormed themselves into the
tortuous fibres of the latter, I passed hand over hand beyond my head,
until I had arrived within a foot or two of the point I desired to
reach. Here, however, a new difficulty occurred. A slight projection of
the rock, close to the aperture, impeded my further progress in the
manner hitherto pursued; and, to pass this, I was compelled to drop my
whole weight, suspended by one vigorous arm, while, with the other, I
separated the bushes that concealed the opening. A violent exertion of
every muscle now impelled me upward, until at length I had so far
succeeded as to introduce my head and shoulders through the aperture;
after which my final success was no longer doubtful. If I have been
thus minute in the detail of the dangerous nature of this passage,"
continued Wacousta, gloomily, "it is not without reason. I would have
you to impress the whole of the localities upon your imagination, that
you may the better comprehend, from a knowledge of the risks I
incurred, how little I have merited the injuries under which I have
writhed for years."

Again one of those painful pauses with which his narrative was so often
broken, occurred; and, with an energy that terrified her whom he
addressed, Wacousta pursued--"Clara de Haldimar, it was here--in this
garden--this paradise--this oasis of the rocks in which I now found
myself, that I first saw and loved your mother. Ha! you start: you
believe me now.--Loved her!" he continued, after another short
pause--"oh, what a feeble word is love to express the concentration of
mighty feelings that flowed like burning lava through my veins! Who
shall pretend to give a name to the emotion that ran thrillingly--madly
through my excited frame, when first I gazed on her, who, in every
attribute of womanly beauty, realised all my fondest fancy ever
painted?--Listen to me, Clara," he pursued, in a fiercer tone, and with
a convulsive pressure of the form he still encircled:--"If, in my
younger days, my mind was alive to enterprise, and loved to contemplate
danger in its most appalling forms, this was far from being the master
passion of my soul; nay, it was the strong necessity I felt of pouring
into some devoted bosom the overflowing fulness of my heart, that made
me court in solitude those positions of danger with which the image of
woman was ever associated