nor the curious barbarism which marks our epoch, had much defaced. The
archaeologists had been there, of course, and discovered evidence which
had satisfied them of the presence of the remains of their
fellow-creatures; but with that they had been content. The dead had, for
the most part, been left undisturbed in their rocky graves, to await the
summons in the faith of which--and perhaps even for it--they had died.
For these were King Arthur's men (as Richard had read)--the warriors who
had helped the blameless king "to drive the heathen and to slay the
beast, to fell the forest and let in the sun."

The lonely desolation of the place, and its natural sublimity, combined
with the recollection of his late deadly peril, tinged the young man's
thoughts with an unusual seriousness; and yet he could not restrain the
cynicism that was habitual to him whenever his attention was compelled
to solemn subjects.

"Now, are these poor folks--whose creed must have been any thing but
orthodox, by all accounts--all in eternal torments, I wonder, or only
waiting to be so, for a few hundreds of years longer? Such was my
mother's friend, Joanna's, comfortable creed, and it is shared, as I
understand, by all the most excellent people. How much better (if so)
would it have been for them to have been born and cradled on this rock
as sea-gulls! Gad, to dwell here and fight for a king about whose very
existence posterity is to be in doubt in this world, and then to go to
the devil! What a nightmare view of life it seems! If, an hour ago or
so, things had turned out otherwise with _me_, I should have solved the
problem for myself. I almost wish I had. And yet it was not so when I
was clinging tooth and nail to the cliff yonder; and these folks would
not have died if they could have helped it, neither. There's something
ugly in black Death that disinclines man to woo her. This wind bites to