the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of
ill-natured mirth, that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he
himself meant to do with the Great Carbuncle.

'The Great Carbuncle!' answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn. 'Why,
you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum natura. I have come three
thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these
mountains, and poke my head into every chasm, for the sole purpose of
demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less an ass than
thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug!'

Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish, and so
impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He
was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to
the darkness, instead of heavenward, and who, could they but distinguish
the lights which God hath kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom
their chiefest glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were
startled by a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the
surrounding mountains and the rock-bed of the turbulent river with an
illumination unlike that of their fire on the trunks and black boughs
of the forest trees. They listened for the roll of thunder, but heard
nothing, and were glad that the tempest came not near them. The stars,
those dial-points of heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their
eyes on the blazing logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the
Great Carbuncle.

The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest
corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the party by
a curtain of curiously-woven twigs, such as might have hung, in deep