Men and maids alike stared at each other, but for a time returned no answer.
“Marry, we know not,” at last said the steward.
Styr the Anglo-Saxon raised his shaggy eyebrows, and darted on the circle a look of reproach, such as, even seen by moonlight, none of those present ever forgot during their lives, and then hid his face in his hands, as if praying.
“Now,” said he, after a moment, “let everybody who would be saved bear back and away, for danger cannot be far distant.”
“Move away,” repeated Wolf, setting the example; and everybody with precipitation got out of reach of the tottering walls.
The prescience of the old man was speedily vindicated. All was soon over, and flames rushed from every casement, including even that by which the domestics had made their narrow escape. Then the roof gave way, a cloud of vapour darkened the sky, a pillar of fire rose high, and the old walls tottered and fell with a crash.
Next morning, when tidings of the catastrophe spread through homesteads and hamlets, and when the peasantry flocked to see what was to be seen, the old hall of the Icinglas was a heap of blackened ruins. But what had befallen Dame Isabel was the question which everybody asked, and the question which nobody could answer.
CHAPTER XLIII
FOUND DYING
WHEN Dame Isabel Icingla comprehended the cause of Wolf the varlet’s intrusion, and meditated for a moment on the intelligence he brought, she became pale as death, uttered an exclamation of terror, and shuddered with horror at the idea of herself and her household being at the mercy of men who knew nothing of mercy but the name. Nevertheless, she was true to herself and her dignity. Falling on her knees, she prayed earnestly for heavenly support, and called not only on St. Moden, the patron of the Morevilles, but on St. Edward and other Saxon saints whom the Icinglas were in the habit of invoking at moments of anger and in times of trouble, to shield her from the danger that beset her; and having done this, the Norman lady doubtless felt that she had done her duty, at least, in placing herself under powerful and holy protection.
It appeared, however, that the three maidens who had been listening, or pretending to listen, while she read to them a narrative of saintly life, did not thoroughly sympathise with Dame Isabel’s pious sentiments. At all events, they failed to follow her example in so far as concerned the invoking of saintly aid. In fact, no sooner did they become aware of their peril than they fluttered, and started up, and screamed, and fled like larks at the approach of the sparrowhawk, and, hurrying pell-mell from the room, followed the other inmates of Oakmede, who were rushing in haste and consternation to a hiding-hole which was formed by a kind of double wall in one wing of the old building, and in which, according to tradition, the Icinglas had found refuge when assailed by the Danes in the days of Harold Harefoot and other of the Danish kings who ruled in England before the coronation of the Confessor.