for one where our little army may be
outflanked, and even surrounded by superior strength and numbers."

"Disobey, and thy life, and all that are with thee, shall be cut off!"

"And to-morrow! Ere we have news from our partisans in the south?
Maurice will be here the third day at the latest."

"I have said it," replied the figure, peremptorily; when suddenly,
and, as it were, formed immediately at his side, appeared another
figure, similar to the first, assuming nearly the same attitude and
manner, save that the latter looked something taller and more
majestic.

"St Mary's grace and the abbot's, there 's twa of us!" cried the first
figure, no less a personage than Dick Empson, who had been daring
enough to adopt this disguise, according to the instructions he had
received at the abbey. He uttered the words in a tone of thrilling and
horrible apprehension, like the last shriek of the victim writhing in
the fangs of his destroyer.

The terrible apparition cried out to his surreptitious
representative--"Nay, miscreant; but one. This thou shalt know, and
feel too. Fool and impostor, thy last hour is come!"

As he spake he seized on the miserable wretch in their presence,
swinging him round by the waist like an infant, and bore him off, up
the turret stairs, to the summit. Ere he disappeared he uttered this
terrible denunciation--

"Your ruin is at hand. Flee! This fool hath betrayed ye, and I return
no more!"

Darting up the staircase, the shrieks of Dick Empson were heard, as if
rapidly ascending to the summit. A wilder and more desperate
struggle--then a heavy plunge, and the waters closed over their prey!

Dick's body was cast up by the waves, but the terrible unknown did not
return; nor was he ever seen or heard of again, save, it is said, that
when the priest received his death-wound, soon afterwards, on the
field of battle, this awful form appeared to rise up before him, and
with scoff and taunt upbraided him as the cause of his own ruin, and
the downfall of his hopes.

The next day, from whatever cause, the troops began to move from their
post. Ere the second evening, they had completely evacuated the castle
and the island, which the wary Abbot of Furness soon turned to his own
advantage, occupying the place with some of his armed vassals. The
rebels, proved to be such by their ill success, took up a tolerably
advantageous position upon Swartz Moor, in the neighbourhood of
Ulverstone, where, waiting in v