ch you could
cut a good board. Might do for gun-stocks."

"My dear Burne," said the professor, "don't you know that these large
ugly bosses go to Europe to be steamed till they are soft, and then
shaved off into leaves as thin almost as coarse brown paper, and then
used and polished for all our handsome pianofortes?"

"No," said Mr Burne shortly, "I didn't know it, and I didn't want to
know it. I'm starving, and my back is getting bad again. Here, Yussuf,
how much farther is it?"

"Two hours' journey, excellency; but as soon as we reach that gap in the
rocks we come to a road that leads directly to the village, and the
walking will be easier."

"Hadn't we better try and shoot a bird or an animal, and make a fire
under those trees, and see if we can find some walnuts? I must eat
something. I cannot devour snuff!"

The professor smiled.

"There is nothing to shoot," he said; "and as to the walnuts, they are
very nice after dinner with wine, but for a meal--"

"Here, Lawrence, you are tired out, my boy," cried Mr Burne
interrupting.

"Yes, I am very tired," said Lawrence, "but I can go on."

"It is dreary work to rest without food," said Yussuf, "but it might be
better to get on to the spring yonder, and pick out a sheltered place
among the rocks, where we could lie down and sleep for a few hours, till
the moon rises, and then continue our journey."

"That's the plan, Yussuf; agreed _nem con_," cried Mr Burne.

"Perhaps it will be best," said Mr Preston, and they journeyed on for
another half hour, till they reached the gap which their guide had
pointed out, one which proved to be the embouchure of another ravine,
along the bottom of which meandered a rough road that had probably never
been repaired since the Romans ruled the land.

"Let us go a little way in," said Yussuf; "we shall then be sheltered
from the wind. It will blow coldly when the sun has set."

He led the way into a wild and awful-looking chasm, for the shadows were
growing deeper, and to the weary and hungry travellers the place had a
strangely forbidding look, suggestive of hidden dangers. But for the
calm and confident way in which Yussuf marched forward, the others would
have hesitated to plunge into a gorge of so weird a character, until the
sun had lightened its gloomy depths.

"I think this will do," said Yussuf, as they turned an angle about a
couple of hundred yards from the entrance. "I will climb up here first.
These rock