Will she, nill she, the young woman dressed and, much perturbed, she reached the outskirts of the onlookers. With them she could not mingle, for they feared her, and she dreaded this same fear. She withdrew to a big straw stack, and beneath its overhanging top (for the cattle had rubbed against it) she found herself a hiding-place.
Every able man in the village was there, and half of the women. She saw Titus passing buckets and getting out gear, nor could she have looked at him without some slight regret, for he was a goodly, comely man and a young witch has an amorous eye. She heard the shouting, the running about, the snap and rustle of the flames. Sometimes other idle watchers came close to where she hid, and from their talk she learned that these three fires had all been started by a cat breathing fire. Widow Bilby had said that this same cat could be no other than her old tom, Gideon, now dead a three-month, thus maliciously returned from Hell. Doll heard her own name spoken and saw heads shaken. She also heard that Ahab was still within the vehemently burning barn. Because of his ferocity as well as because of his wanderings, he had lately been closely penned. So far no one had been able to loose him, although several had essayed to do so. The horses, savage with fear, had been moved far from the fire lest they, with the fondness of their kind, return to their accustomed stalls and perish. The cattle were running about the barnyard, where they interfered with the work, upsetting buckets, etc. Such swine as the Thumbs possessed burned to their deaths, their stench polluting the air. Doll sickened at the smell, for she never could forget the holocaust of Mont Hoël. Until the fire burst the ridgepole, the doves flew constantly from their cotes under the eaves. Some were so singed they fell to the muck of the yard and, trampled under foot, perished.
Just before the fall of the barn floor, Ahab was loosed. With sparks upon his coat, his eyes rolling most horribly, he came out of danger at a gallop. Seeing the crowd, he charged furiously, passing over the bodies of three, yet not staying to gore them, so intent was he on the men who ran. Wherever he went, the crowd melted and the shouting rose. Many believed it was this wicked bull, and not the Hell cat, that had set these fires, for now he seemed intent on guarding the fire and would let no one near it. Doll thought the creature was her friend—perhaps sometime he would become her familiar; but when she saw him coming for her on a brisk and determined trot she ran up the short ladder leaning against the straw stack, not relying unduly on either charms or friendship.
The same moment the roof fell and sparks flew up, rising into the night air an hundred feet and more, until the sky seemed filled with departing souls flying up and up to the Throne of God.
Doll, panting from her vexatious exercise upon the ladder and sweating from her recent fear, found herself upon the top of the straw stack. She was sprawled upon hands and knees. In the fury of the orange light (which with the fall of the roof suddenly was most horrible) she gazed about her. Then she saw she was not alone, for with her was a luggard fiend who stretched his length upon the straw. His eyes were red as though filled with blood. He wore (she said) a costume like a seaman’s, except that, where a seaman’s clothes are coarse, his were fine and dainty. For instance, the hoops in his ears were not of brass but jewels. She said he had a silk kerchief tied about his head. Upon his breast he bare—as if in mockery of that virgin whose worship the Catholics prefer to the worship of God—the very imp, the little servant, whom she had seen in Greene’s cold-cellar. She guessed he was her god, or a messenger from her god, so, crying out, ‘Master, master, you have come for me,’ she further prostrated herself before him. Now she was no more alone, for this fiend had come for her.
At first the demon made no response; then, after a little and with a few high but kindly words, he permitted her to approach. She said she could scarce believe that, after such long waiting and such unanswered prayers, he had at last come. ‘Oh, I have been lonely, lonely; I have had no one,’ and she sobbed (no tears came).
‘Why do you sob, Bilby’s Doll?’
‘Because I am happy at last.’
He reproved her gently because she had ever doubted his advent, which he said he had announced to her by the lighting of these three great fires. It was his will that turned her steps to the ladder and, as she became too intent upon the fire to notice the summons of his will, he loosed a fierce black bull who urged her up the humble ladder and into his presence.