from this eminence. Beneath
them on every side stretched the long sweep of peaceful country,
rolling plain, and tangled wood, all softened and mellowed in the silver
moonshine. No light, nor movement, nor any sign of human aid could be
seen, but far away the hoarse clangor of a heavy bell rose and fell upon
the wintry air. Beneath and around them blazed the huge fire, roaring
and crackling on every side of the bailey, and even as they looked the
two corner turrets fell in with a deafening crash, and the whole castle
was but a shapeless mass, spouting flames and smoke from every window
and embrasure. The great black tower upon which they stood rose like a
last island of refuge amid this sea of fire but the ominous crackling
and roaring below showed that it would not be long ere it was engulfed
also in the common ruin. At their very feet was the square courtyard,
crowded with the howling and dancing peasants, their fierce faces
upturned, their clenched hands waving, all drunk with bloodshed and with
vengeance. A yell of execration and a scream of hideous laughter burst
from the vast throng, as they saw the faces of the last survivors of
their enemies peering down at them from the height of the keep. They
still piled the brushwood round the base of the tower, and gambolled
hand in hand around the blaze, screaming out the doggerel lines which
had long been the watchword of the Jacquerie:

Cessez, cessez, gens d'armes et pietons,
De piller et manger le bonhomme
Qui de longtemps Jacques Bonhomme
Se nomme.

Their thin, shrill voices rose high above the roar of the flames and the
crash of the masonry, like the yelping of a pack of wolves who see their
quarry before them and know that they have well-nigh run him down.

"By my hilt!" said Aylward to John, "it is in my mind that we shall not
see Spain this journey. It is a great joy to me that I have placed
my feather-bed and other things of price with that worthy woman at
Lyndhurst, who will now have the use of them. I have thirteen arrows
yet, and if one of them fly unfleshed, then, by the twang of string! I
shall deserve my doom. First at him who flaunts with my lady's silken
frock. Clap in the clout, by God! though a hand's-breadth lower than
I had meant. Now for the rogue with the head upon his pike. Ha! to
the inch, John. When my eye is true, I am better at rovers than at
long-butts or hoyles. A good shoot for you also, John! The villain