orning fixed for the
assault. Six men, relieved at intervals, kept watch over it during
the night. Prince John retired to sleep, congratulating himself in
the expectation that another day would place the fair culprit at his
princely mercy. His anticipations mingled with the visions of his
slumber, and he dreamed of wounds and drums, and sacking and firing
the castle, and bearing off in his arms the beautiful prize through the
midst of fire and smoke. In the height of this imaginary turmoil, he
awoke, and conceived for a few moments that certain sounds which rang in
his ears, were the continuation of those of his dream, in that sort
of half-consciousness between sleeping and waking, when reality and
phantasy meet and mingle in dim and confused resemblance. He was,
however, very soon fully awake to the fact of his guards calling on him
to arm, which he did in haste, and beheld the machine in flames, and
a furious conflict raging around it. He hurried to the spot, and found
that his camp had been suddenly assailed from one side by a party of
foresters, and that the baron's people had made a sortie on the other,
and that they had killed the guards, and set fire to the machine, before
the rest of the camp could come to the assistance of their fellows.

The night was in itself intensely dark, and the fire-light shed around
it a vivid and unnatural radiance. On one side, the crimson light
quivered by its own agitation on the waveless moat, and on the bastions
and buttresses of the castle, and their shadows lay in massy blackness
on the illuminated walls: on the other, it shone upon the woods,
streaming far within among the open trunks, or resting on the closer
foliage. The circumference of darkness bounded the scene on all sides:
and in the centre raged the war; shields, helmets, and bucklers gleaming
and glittering as they rang and clashed against each other; plumes
confusedly tossing in the crimson light, and the messy light and shade
that fell on the faces of the combatants, giving additional energy to
their ferocious expression.

John, drawing nearer to the scene of action, observed two young warriors
fighting side by side, one of whom wore the habit of a forester, the
other that of a retainer of Arlingford. He looked intently on them both:
their position towards the fire favoured the scrutiny; and the hawk's
eye of love very speedily discovered that the latter was the fair
Matilda. The forester he did not know: but he ha