Her stag often played the truant, and passed
whole hours away from her, rambling beyond the precincts
of the solitude that contained its mistress; but no sooner
was the small silver bugle, which she wore across her
shoulder, applied to her lips, than 'Fidelity' (thus she
had named him) was certain to obey the call, and to come
bounding up the line of cliff to the main rock, into
which it effected its entrance at a point that had escaped
my notice. It was her bugle I had heard in the course of
my pursuit of the animal; and, from the aperture through
which I had effected my entrance, she had looked out to
see who was the audacious hunter she had previously
observed threading a passage, along which her stag itself
never appeared without exciting terror in her bosom. The
first glimpse she had caught of my form was at the moment
when, after having sounded my own bugle, I cleared the
chasm; and this was a leap she had so often trembled to
see taken by 'Fidelity,' that she turned away and shuddered
when she saw it fearlessly adventured on by a human being.
A feeling of curiosity had afterwards induced her to
return and see if the bold hunter had cleared the gulf,
or perished in his mad attempt; but when she looked
outward from the highest pinnacle of her rocky prison,
she could discover no traces of him whatever.
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