"It is an old, deserted ruin that's been here ever since I remember; and that's all I know about it." While, he spoke, the crouching shape in the corner reared itself upright, and keeping his fiery eyes still glaring upon Sir Norman, advanced into the light.

Our young knight was in the act of raising his glass to his lips; but as the apparition approached, he laid it down again, untasted, and stared at it in the wildest surprise and intensest curiosity.

Truly, it was a singular-looking creature, not to say a rather startling one.

A dwarf of some four feet high, and at least five feet broad across the shoulders, with immense arms and head--a giant in everything but height.

His immense skull was set on such a trifle of a neck as to be scarcely worth mentioning, and was garnished by a violent mat of coarse, black hair, which also overran the territory of his cheeks and chin, leaving no neutral ground but his two fiery eyes and a broken nose all twisted awry.