after all were not one of the pleasantest description, and
might not fall out so happily as they had expected.

Yet what danger could there be? there were they, more than half a
hundred stout, strong men, to cope with one; they felt convinced that he
was completely in their power; they knew the ruins could not hide him,
and that five minutes time given to the task, would suffice to explore
every nook and corner of them.

And yet they hesitated, while an unknown terror shook their nerves, and
seemingly from the very fact that they had run down their game
successfully, they dreaded to secure the trophy of the chase.

One bold spirit was wanting; and, if it was not a bold one that spoke at
length, he might be complimented as being comparatively such. It was one
who had not been foremost in the chase, perchance from want of physical
power, who now stood forward, and exclaimed,--

"What are you waiting for, now? You can have him when you like. If you
want your wives and children to sleep quietly in their beds, you will
secure the vampyre. Come on--we all know he's here--why do you hesitate?
Do you expect me to go alone and drag him out by the ears?"

Any voice would have sufficed to break the spell which bound them. This
did so; and, with one accord, and yells of imprecation, they rushed
forward and plunged among the old walls of the ruin.

Less time than we have before remarked would have enabled any one to
explore the tottering fabric sufficient to bring a conviction to their
minds that, after all, there might have been some mistake about the
matter, and Sir Francis Varney was not quite caught yet.

It was astonishing how the fact of not finding him in a moment, again
roused all their angry feelings against him, and dispelled every feeling
of superstitious awe with which he had been surrounded; rage gave place
to the sort of shuddering horror with which they had before contemplated
his immediate destruction, when they had believed him to be virtually
within their very grasp.

Over and over again the ruins were searched--hastily and impatiently by
some, carefully and deliberately by others, until there could be no
doubt upon the mind of every one individual, that somehow or somewhere
within the shadow of those walls, Sir Francis Varney had disappeared
most mysteriously.

Then it would have been a strange sight for any indifferent spectator to
have seen how they shrunk, one by one, out of the shadow of those ruins;