he
hunted have would have passed unheeded, knowing that not for one instant
could he have baffled his pursuers by seeking so inefficient a refuge.

And those who followed hard and fast upon the track of Sir Francis
Varney felt so sure of their game, when they saw whither he was
speeding, that they relaxed in their haste considerably, calling loudly
to each other that the vampire was caught at last, for he could be
easily surrounded among the old ruins, and dragged from amongst its
moss-grown walls.

In another moment, with a wild dash and a cry of exultation, he sprang
out of sight, behind an angle, formed by what had been at one time one
of the principal supports of the ancient structure.

Then, as if there was still something so dangerous about him, that only
by a great number of hands could he be hoped to be secured, the
infuriated peasantry gathered in a dense circle around what they
considered his temporary place of refuge, and as the sun, which had now
climbed above the tree tops, and dispersed, in a great measure, many of
the heavy clouds of morning, shone down upon the excited group, they
might have been supposed there assembled to perform some superstitious
rite, which time had hallowed as an association of the crumbling ruin
around which they stood.

By the time the whole of the stragglers, who had persisted in the chase,
had come up, there might have been about fifty or sixty resolute men,
each intent upon securing the person of one whom they felt, while in
existence, would continue to be a terror to all the weaker and dearer
portions of their domestic circles.

There was a pause of several minutes. Those who had come the fleetest
were gathering breath, and those who had come up last were looking to
their more forward companions for some information as to what had
occurred before their arrival.

All was profoundly still within the ruin, and then suddenly, as if by
common consent, there arose from every throat a loud shout of
"Down with the vampyre! down with the vampyre!"

The echoes of that shout died away, and then all was still as before,
while a superstitious feeling crept over even the boldest. It would
almost seem as if they had expected some kind of response from Sir
Francis Varney to the shout of defiance with which they had just greeted
him; but the very calmness, repose, and absolute quiet of the ruin, and
all about it, alarmed them, and they looked the one at the other as if
the adventure