sleep of the weary.

The secluded bivouac was kept the next day. Only the master went forth
in the afternoon. Climbing the mountain, he found the line in
continuation of the bridge; a task the two arches serving as a base made
comparatively easy. He stood then upon a bench or terrace cumbered with
rocks, and so broad that few persons casually looking would have
suspected it artificial. Facing fully about from the piers, he walked
forward following the terrace which at places was out of line, and piled
with debris tumbled from the mountain on the right hand side; in a few
minutes that silent guide turned with an easy curve and disappeared in
what had yet the appearance hardly distinguishable of an area wrenched
with enormous labor from a low cliff of solid brown limestone.

The visitor scanned the place again and again; then he said aloud:

"No one has been here since"--

The sentence was left unfinished.

That he could thus identify the spot, and with such certainty pass upon
it in relation to a former period, proved he had been there before.

Rocks, earth, and bushes filled the space. Picking footway through, he
examined the face of the cliff then in front of him, lingering longest
on the heap of breakage forming a bank over the meeting line of area and
hill.

"Yes," he repeated, this time with undisguised satisfaction, "no one has
been here since"--