“Woman!” he exclaimed with fury, “thou hast not set fire to it?—By Heaven, thou hast, and the castle is in flames!”

“They are fast rising, at least,” said Ulrica, with frightful composure; “and a signal shall soon wave to warn the besiegers to press hard upon those who would extinguish them.—Farewell, Front-de-Bœuf!—May Mista, Skogula, and Zernebock, gods of the ancient Saxons—fiends, as the priests now call them—supply the place of comforters at your dying bed, which Ulrica now relinquishes!—But know, if it will give thee comfort to know it, that Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with thyself, the companion of thy punishment as the companion of thy guilt.—And now, parricide, farewell for ever!—May each stone of this vaulted roof find a tongue to echo that title into thine ear!”

So saying, she left the apartment; and Front-de-Bœuf could hear the crash of the ponderous key, as she locked and double-locked the door behind her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of escape. In the extremity of agony he shouted upon his servants and allies—“Stephen and St. Maur!—Clement and Giles!—I burn here unaided!—To the rescue—to the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert, valiant De Bracy!—It is Front-de-Bœuf who calls!—It is your master, ye traitor squires!—Your ally—your brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights!—all the curses due to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus miserably!—They hear me not—they cannot hear me—my voice is lost in the din of battle.—The smoke rolls thicker and thicker—the fire has caught upon the floor below.—O for one draught of the air of heaven, were it to be purchased by instant annihilation!” And in the mad frenzy of despair, the wretch now shouted with the shouts of the fighters, now muttered curses on himself, on mankind, and on Heaven itself.—“ The red fire flashes through the thick smoke!” he exclaimed; “the demon marches against me under the banner of his own element. —Foul spirit, avoid!—I go not with thee without my comrades—all, all are thine, that garrison these walls.— Thinkest thou Front-de-Bœuf will be singled out to go alone?—No, the infidel Templar—the licentious De Bracy—Ulrica, the foul murdering strumpet—the men who aided my enterprises—the dog Saxons and accursed Jews, who are my prisoners—all, all shall attend me—a goodly fellowship as ever took the downward road—Ha, ha, ha!” and he laughed in his frenzy till the vaulted roof rang again. “Who laughed there?” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf, in altered mood, for the noise of the conflict did not prevant the echoes of his own mad laughter from returning upon his ear—“who laughed there?—Ulrica, was it thou?—Speak, witch, and I forgive thee—for only thou or the fiend of hell himself could have laughed at such a moment. Avaunt —avaunt!—”

But it were impious to trace any further the picture of the blasphemer and parricide’s death-bed.