“Now,” said the count with a significant gesture and in a decisive tone, “enter, and do your duty.”
As he spoke, such of his men as had dismounted passed the drawbridge, rushed through the courtyard, and with little difficulty forced their way into the house; but, to their surprise, nobody appeared either to yield or resist. The place was deserted, and they roamed from chamber to chamber without meeting with a human being. It seemed by their ejaculations, and by their searching and re-searching, that the French soldiers were disappointed at the absence of flesh and blood. However, they laid hold of everything as spoil that was not too heavy to bear away, and returned to the count to report the result of their adventure; and he, after muttering a few oaths, gave his final order.
“Set fire to this den without loss of time,” said he sharply, “and dally not, for we have far to ride. Mort Dieu! if this Icingla should think fit to visit his house this night, I will provide him with light sufficient to guide him on his way through the woods.”
The count’s order was speedily obeyed. His men, indeed, seemed to relish the duty. Having ransacked the barns and the cow-houses, and killed the old cowherd, who, unluckily for him, arrived at that moment from the neighbouring hamlet, the soldiers brought wood and straw, and proceeded, with business-like precision, to the work of destruction, and the house, being chiefly constructed of timber--and that timber old and dry--was soon in a blaze.
“Now mount, every man, and let us begone,” said the count triumphantly. “By the bones of John the Baptist! we have made an example of this Icingla, and done enough to deter others from setting themselves against our good Lord Louis. Ride on;” and as the count spoke he turned his horse’s head, and, followed by his band of ruffians, rode leisurely by the twilight, up the glade by which he had come on his errand of devastation.
Nor had the French in any degree failed in the work which they came to do. When Wolf, seeing that the coast was clear, emerged from his hiding-place, and came into the open space to gaze on the burning house, night had already fallen, and the sight was terrible to behold, and all the more so to him that he feared the inmates had fallen victims. The fire, indeed, was raging, and devouring its prey like a fiend, and coiling, as the serpent does, round its victim. In some places it had reached the roof, and was leaping towards the sky, on which the reflection of the flames was red as blood, and there was every prospect of the flames meeting in such a way as to reduce the old house to a heap of ashes and ruins. Driven by the wind, the fire reached the outbuildings, and stables, barns, brewhouse, and cow-houses, and pigeon-houses were involved in one general conflagration. Only the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan, from the fact of its standing apart from the other buildings, and in the quarter opposite to that towards which the wind was blowing, had a chance of escape.