e oilier.
"Well, well; it is a wrong name to apply to a vampyre."
"It is Varney, after all, then," said Henry. Bannerworth, to
himself;--"it is his life that they seek. What can be done to save
him?--for saved he shall be if I can compass such an object. I feel that
there is yet a something in his character which is entitled to
consideration, and he shall not be savagely murdered while I have an arm
to raise in his defence. But if anything is now to be done, it must be
done by stratagem, for the enemy are, by far, in too great force to be
personally combatted with."
Henry resolved to take the advice of his friends, and with that view he
went silently and quietly back to where they were, and communicated to
them the news that he had so unexpectedly discovered.
They were all much surprised, and then the doctor said,
"You may depend, that since the disappointment of the mob in the
destruction of this place, they have had their eye upon Varney. He has
been dogged here by some one, and then by degrees that assemblage has
sought the spot."
"He's a doomed man, then," remarked the admiral; "for what can save him
from a determined number of persons, who, by main force, will overcome
us, let us make what stand we may in his defence."
"Is there no hiding-place in the house," said Charles, "where you might,
after warring him of his danger, conceal him?"
"There are plenty, but of what avail would that be, if they burn down
the Hall, which in all probability they will!"
"None, certainly."
"There is but one chance," said Henry, "and that is to throw them off
the scent, and induce them to think that he whom they seek is not here;
I think that may possibly be done by boldness."
"But how!"
"I will go among them and make the effort."
He at once left the friends, for he felt that there might be no time to
lose, and hastening to the same part of the wall, ever which he had
looked so short a time before, he clambered over it, and cried, in a
loud voice,
"Stop the vampyre! stop the vampyre!"
"Where, where?" shouted a number of persons at once, turning their eyes
eagerly towards the spot where Henry stood.
"There, across the fields," cried Henry. "I have lain in wait for him
long; but he has eluded me, and is making his way again towards the old
ruins, where I am sure he has some hiding-place that he thinks will
elude all search. There, I see his dusky form speeding onwards."
"Come on," cried several; "to
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