But the awakening did not silence the cries. They were no dreams, those screams of terror, those head-rending shrieks for help, they were dreadful realities; and, rushing to the window, she gazed out with a beating heart at the western sky, which flickered and flared with strange and ghostly gleams.
She ran back to the sleeping countess, and by the lurid light saw that she was smiling in her sleep.
'Wake! wake! Oh, Emma! dear countess! this is no night for sleep. Methinks the dawn is like to bring the last dread day! Alas! she sleeps like a young infant that knows not danger or woe. Wake, Emma! Thy life may hang on it!'
Then the countess, opening her eyes dreamily, murmured, 'Thou hast brought good succour, Ralph!' The next moment she started up. 'Mary Mother! what is it, child?'
'There is murder in the air, Emma! See, the very sky is full of tokens. Listen! listen! Oh, saints in heaven! how they scream!'
They did indeed! The countess sprang from the bed and rushed to the window also.
'They have fired the town!' she cried; 'they have fired the town!—the Saxon quarter! Sir Hoël said they would!'
'The Saxon quarter! Oh, my home, my home!' cried Eadgyth, and, pressing her hands to her ears in a vain effort to shut out the shrieks of the sufferers, she cowered, with closed eyes, upon the floor.
'Let us go to the great portal of the keep, whence we can see it,' said the countess.
'See it!' cried Eadgyth. 'Ah, Emma, no! I could not look! It would kill me.'