seless to the earth. The next moment, like
flood-gates burst by a mighty tide, the doors of the temple were
opened with a clang, and through them a crowd of armed men came
rushing in with triumphant shouts and angry cries of vengeance.

Sholto was far ahead of the others, and, as if led by the unerring
instinct of love, he ran to the altar whereon his love lay white as
death, but without a mark upon her fair body.

It was the work of a moment to cut their cords and chafe the numbed
wrists and ankles. James Douglas took the little Margaret. Sholto had
his sweetheart in his arms, while Laurence recovered quickly enough to
aid his father in securing Gilles de Retz and his servants. La
Meffraye they took not, for she lay dead within the inner chamber,
where yet burned the great fire which was used to consume the bodies
of the demon's victims. Two gaping wounds were found in her breast, in
the same place in which the dagger of Laurence MacKim had smitten the
she-wolf as she sprang upon him. But Astarte, woman witch or
were-wolf, was never seen again, neither by starlight, moonlight, nor
yet in the eye of day. Truly of Gilles de Retz was it said, "His demon
hath deserted him."

Beneath in the courts and quadrangles, swarming through the towers and
clambering perilously on the roofs, surged the press of the furious
populace. It was all that Duke John and his officers could do to keep
the prisoners in ward, and to prevent them from being torn limb from
limb (as had perhaps been fittest), and tossed alive into the flaming
funeral pyre of Castle Machecoul, which, lighted by a hundred hands,
presently began to flame like a volcano to the skies.

For the hour that comes to every evil-doer had come to Gilles de Retz.
And in that hour, as it shall ever be, the devil in whom he trusted
had forsaken him.

But the Lady Sybilla stood on the garden tower that in happier days
had been her pleasaunce, and beheld. And as she watched she kissed the
golden crucifix of the child Margaret. And her heart rejoiced because
the lives of the innocent as well as the death of the guilty had been
given her for her portion.

"And now, O Lord, I am ready to pay the price!" she said.

CHAPTER LX

HIS DEMON HATH DESERTED HIM

The soldiers of the Duke of Brittany stood with bared swords and
deadly pikes around the Marshal de Retz and those of his servants who
had been taken--that is to say, round Poitou, Clerk Henriet, Blanquet,
and Robin