Up and farther upward shot the flames, and in half-an-hour every leaf, save those upon the extremity of the branches, was gone; the whole foliage had been scorched off; the large knotty limbs were blackened and burned, or the smaller entirely consumed; the whole of that magnificent oak was divested of bark, cracked, calcined, and half consumed by fire.
Still the three prisoners had neither cried once for mercy, nor fallen down by being overcome by heat or exhaustion; and now, those who thirsted for their blood below, began to look rather blankly in each others' faces, while fear and wonder grew together in their hearts.
The flames around its mighty stem sunk low, and died away as morning brightened in the east; and there stood the giant tree, with its trunk, nearly nine feet in diameter, the bare and blackened ruin of its former self—a smoking and sable skeleton; but there was no trace, not even a vestige of the fugitives!
It was impossible that the fire could have consumed them and their apparel too.
It was equally impossible that they could have descended and escaped through the flames, for their intended destroyers stood around them in a circle.
"By St. Mary, there hath been magic or a miracle at work here!" said Hailes, on being convinced that, beyond a doubt, the three had vanished from their lofty perch.
"'Tis said that some who have ascended this tree did never more come down," said Home.
"May the Blessed Virgin not have borne them away to punish us for violating the sanctity of Loretto," said the superstitious Laird of Blackcastle, in a low voice.
"May not the devil or the weird woman have done the same thing?" asked Borthwick, scoffingly, with a scowl in his eye.
"Peace," said Hailes, with an irrepressible shudder, caused either by fear or the chill morning air; "I have heard of strange things for good or evil happening here," he added, putting a foot in his stirrup to remount; "and now I am not ashamed to say that I repent me sorely of following those rascals into consecrated ground; so let us to horse and begone, lest the burgesses of the honest town betake them to axe and stave to punish this raid of ours before we cross the Esk again; for they will not thole the sin, though our gentler Lady of Loretto may."