“Ha!” answered the baron, after a long pause, “an thou knowest that, thou art indeed the author of evil, and as omniscient as the monks call thee!—That secret I deemed locked in my own breast, and in that of one besides—the temptress, the partaker of my guilt.—Go, leave me, fiend! and seek the Saxon witch Ulrica, who alone could tell thee what she and I alone witnessed.—Go, I say, to her, who washed the wounds, and straighted the corpse, and gave to the slain man the outward show of one parted in time and in the course of nature.—Go to her, she was my temptress, the foul provoker, the more foul rewarder, of the deed—let her, as well as I, taste of the tortures which anticipate hell!”

“She already tastes them,” said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of Front-de-Bœuf; “she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it.—Grind not thy teeth, Front-de-Bœuf—roll not thine eyes—clench not thine hand, nor shake it at me with that gesture of menace!—The hand which, like that of thy renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and powerless as mine own!”

“Vile murderous hag!” replied Front-de-Bœuf; “detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast assisted to lay low?”

“Ay, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” answered she, “it is Ulrica!—it is the daughter of the murdered Torquil Wolfganger!—it is the sister of his slaughtered sons!—it is she who demands of thee, and of thy father’s house, father and kindred, name and fame—all that she has lost by the name of Front-de-Bœuf!—Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Bœuf, and answer me if I speak not truth. Thou hast been my evil angel, and I will be thine—I will dog thee till the very instant of dissolution!”

“Detestable fury!” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf, “that moment shalt thou never witness.—Ho! Giles, Clement, and Eustace! St. Maur, and Stephen! seize this damned witch, and hurl her from the battlements headlong—she has betrayed us to the Saxon!—Ho! St. Maur! Clement! false-hearted knaves, where tarry ye?”

“Call on them again, valiant baron,” said the hag, with a smile of grisly mockery; “summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter to the scourge and the dungeon.—But know, mighty chief,” she continued, suddenly changing her tone, “thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid, nor obedience at their hands.—Listen to these horrid sounds,” for the din of the recommenced assault and defence now rung fearfully loud from the battlements of the castle; “in that war-cry is the downfall of thy house—The blood-cemented fabric of Front-de-Bœuf’s power totters to the foundation, and before the foes he most despised!—The Saxon, Reginald!—the scorned Saxon assails thy walls!—Why liest thou here, like a worn-out hind, when the Saxon storms thy place of strength?”

“Gods and fiends!” exclaimed the wounded knight; “O for one moment’s strength, to drag myself to the mêlée, and perish as becomes my name!”

“Think not of it, valiant warrior!” replied she; “thou shalt die no soldier’s death, but perish like the fox in his den, when the peasants have set fire to the cover around it.”

“Hateful hag! thou liest!” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf; “my followers bear them bravely—my walls are strong and high—my comrades in arms fear not a whole host of Saxons, were they headed by Hengist and Horsa!—The war-cry of the Templar and of the Free Companions rises high over the conflict! And by mine honour, when we kindle the blazon beacon, for joy of our defence, it shall consume thee, body and bones; and I shall live to hear thou art gone from earthly fires to those of that hell which never sent forth an incarnate fiend more utterly diabolical!”

“Hold thy belief,” replied Ulrica, “till the proof reach thee.—But, no!” she said, interrupting herself, “thou shalt know, even now, the doom, which all thy power, strength, and courage is unable to avoid, though it is prepared for thee by this feeble hand. Markest thou the smouldering and suffocating vapour which already eddies in sable folds through the chamber?—Didst thou think it was but the darkening of thy bursting eyes—the difficulty of thy cumbered breathing? No! Front-de-Bœuf, there is another cause—Rememberest thou the magazine of fuel that is stored beneath these apartments?”