oophole, and oozed blue in the moonlight
through each crevice. I hobbled back, racked with pain and fury. There
were white faces up at my window. They saw me. They cursed me. I cursed
them back and shook my naked sword: 'Come down the road I came,' I
cried. 'But ye must come one by one, and as ye come, ye die upon this
steel.' Some cursed at that, but others wailed. For I had them all at
deadly vantage. And doubtless, with my smoke-grimed face and fiendish
rage, I looked a demon. And now there was a steady roar inside the mill.
The flame was going up it as furnace up its chimney. The mill caught
fire. Fire glimmered through it. Tongues of flame darted through each
loophole and shot sparks and fiery flakes into the night. One of the
assassins leaped on to the sail, as I had done. In his hurry he missed
his grasp and fell at my feet, and bounded from the hard ground like
a ball, and never spoke, nor moved again. And the rest screamed like
women, and with their despair came back to me both ruth for them and
hope of life for myself. And the fire gnawed through the mill in placen,
and shot forth showers of great flat sparks like flakes of fiery snow;
and the sails caught fire one after another; and I became a man again
and staggered away terror-stricken, leaning on my sword, from the sight
of my revenge, and with great bodily pain crawled back to the road.
And, dear Margaret, the rimy trees were now all like pyramids of
golden filagree, and lace, cobweb fine, in the red firelight. Oh! most
beautiful! And a poor wretch got entangled in the burning sails, and
whirled round screaming, and lost hold at the wrong time, and hurled
like stone from mangonel high into the air; then a dull thump; it was
his carcass striking the earth. The next moment there was a loud crash.
The mill fell in on its destroyer, and a million great sparks flew up,
and the sails fell over the burning wreck, and at that a million more
sparks flew up, and the ground was strewn with burning wood and men. I
prayed God forgive me, and kneeling with my back to that fiery shambles,
I saw lights on the road; a welcome sight. It was a company coming
towards me, and scarce two furlongs off. I hobbled towards them. Ere I
had gone far I heard a swift step behind me. I turned. One had escaped;
how escaped, who can divine? His sword shone in the moonlight. I feared
him. Methought the ghosts of all those dead sat on that glittering
glaive. I put my other foot to the ground