ired so quickly, after speaking, that Peveril had literally not an
instant to reply. He cast his eyes around the apartment, but Deborah
and her charge had also disappeared. His gaze rested for a moment on
the portrait of Christian, and his imagination suggested that his dark
features were illuminated by a smile of haughty triumph. He stared,
and looked more attentively--it was but the effect of the evening beam,
which touched the picture at the instant. The effect was gone, and there
remained but the fixed, grave, inflexible features of the republican
soldier.

Julian left the apartment as one who walks in a dream; he mounted Fairy,
and, agitated by a variety of thoughts, which he was unable to reduce to
order, he returned to Castle Rushin before the night sat down.

Here he found all in movement. The Countess, with her son, had, upon
some news received, or resolution formed, during his absence, removed,
with a principal part of their family, to the yet stronger Castle of
Holm-Peel, about eight miles' distance across the island; and which had
been suffered to fall into a much more dilapidated condition than that
of Castletown, so far as it could be considered as a place of residence.
But as a fortress, Holm-Peel was stronger than Castletown; nay, unless
assailed regularly, was almost impregnable; and was always held by
a garrison belonging to the Lords of Man. Here Peveril arrived at
nightfall. He was told in the fishing-village, that the night-bell of
the Castle had been rung earlier than usual, and the watch set with
circumstances of unusual and jealous repetition.

Resolving, therefore, not to disturb the garrison by entering at that
late hour, he obtained an indifferent lodging in the town for the night,
and determined to go to the Castle early on the succeeding morning. He
was not sorry thus to gain a few hours of solitude, to think over the
agitating events of the preceding day.

CHAPTER XV

----What seem'd its head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
--PARADISE LOST.

Sodor, or Holm-Peel, so is named the castle to which our Julian directed
his course early on the following morning, is one of those extraordinary
monuments of antiquity with which this singular and interesting island
abounds. It occupies the whole of a high rocky peninsula, or rather
an island, for it is surrounded by the sea at high-water, and scarcely
acces