1 Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last night.
2 At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them.
3 Taking his field-glasses from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon.
4 He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders.
5 The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined that they should not pass.
6 He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck.
7 The excitement of the passengers grew greater; the crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea.
8 Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along.
9 It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there.
10 Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side.
11 To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone.
12 The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured.
13 I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair.
14 Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly.