Roupall and the youth crept stealthily down the cliff by a secret path; then, with the greatest deliberation, Jack struck a light, and prepared to fire the train they had connected with those within the nest, to which we alluded at the commencement of our narrative; while Springall proceeded to perform a similar task a little lower down the Crag, towards the window from whence the preacher, Fleetword, slung the packet which so fortunately arrived at the place of its destination.
The instant their purpose was effected by a signal agreed upon between them they quickly withdrew, and sheltered beneath the shade of a huge rock left bare by the receding tide, where no injury could befal them. It was well they did so, for in a moment the report as of a thousand cannon thundered through the air, and fragments of clay, rock, and shingle fell, thick as hail, and heavy as millstones, all around.
Immediately after a piercing cry for aid burst upon their ear, and spread over land and water.
"God of Heaven!" exclaimed Springall, "it is not possible that any human creature could have been within the place!" and he stretched himself forward, and looked up to where the cry was uttered.
The young man, whose locks were then light as the golden beams of the sun, and whose step was as free as that of the mountain roe, lived to be very old, and his hair grew white, and his free step crippled, before death claimed his subject; he was moreover one acquainted in after years with much strife and toil, and earned honour, and wealth, and distinction; but often has he declared that never had he witnessed any thing which so appalled his soul as the sight he beheld on that remembered morning. He seized Roupall's arm with convulsive energy, and dragged him forward, heedless of the storm of clay and stones that was still pelting around them. Wherever the train had fired, the crag had been thrown out; and as there were but few combustibles within its holes, and the gay sunlight had shorn the flames of their brightness, the objects that struck the gaze of the lookers on were the dark hollows vomiting forth columns of black and noisome smoke, streaked with a murky red.
As the fire made its way according to the direction of the meandering powder, which Dalton himself had laid in case of surprise, the earth above reeled, and shook, and sent forth groans, like those of troubled nature when a rude earthquake bursts asunder what the Almighty united with such matchless skill. The lower train that Springall fired had cast forth, amongst rocks and stones, the mass of clay in which was the loophole through which Fleetword had looked out upon the wide sea. Within the chasm thus created was the figure of a living man. He stood there with uplifted hands, lacking courage to advance; for beneath, the wreathed smoke and dim hot fume of the consuming fire told him of certain death; unable to retreat,—for the insidious flame had already destroyed the door which Roupall had failed to move, and danced, like a fiend at play with destruction, from rafter to rafter, and beam to beam, of the devoted place.
"Ha!" exclaimed the reckless rover, with a calmness which at the moment made his young companion upbraid him as the most merciless of human kind; "ha! I wonder how he got there? I heard that some how or other he was in limbo at Cecil Place; he wanted to make an escape, I suppose, and so took to the old earth. Ay, ay! look your last on the bright sun, that's laughing at man and man's doings—you'll never mount to where it shines, I trow."
Sir Willmott Burrell—for Roupall had not been deceived either as to the identity of the person, or the motive which led him to seek refuge in the Gull's Nest—had effected an almost miraculous escape, considering how closely he was guarded, a few hours before, and secreted himself in the very chamber where he had left poor Fleetword to starvation, little imagining that he was standing on the threshold of retributive justice. He had caught at flight, even so far, as a sort of reprieve; and was forming plans of future villany at the very moment the train was fired. God have mercy on all sinners! it is fearful to be cut off without time for repentance. Sir Willmott had none. In the flower of manhood, with a vigorous body and a skilful mind, he had delighted in evil, and panted for the destruction of his fellows. His face, upon which the glare of the garish fire danced in derision of his agony, was distorted, and terrible to look upon: brief as was the space allotted to him, each moment seemed a year of torture. As the flames rose and encircled their victim, his cries were so dreadful, that Springall pressed his hands to his ears, and buried his face in the sand; but Roupall looked on to the last, thinking aloud his own rude but energetic thoughts.
"Ah! you do not pray, as I have seen some do! Now, there come the Ironsides," he added, as those grave soldiers drew up on a projection of the opposite cliff, which, though lower than the ruined Gull's Nest, commanded a view of the cavern and its sole inmate; "there they come, and just in time to see your departure for your father the devil's land. You don't even die game! What an end one of those Ingy chiefs would ha' made of it on such a funeral pile; but some people have no feeling—no pride—no care for what looks well!"
At that instant the Preacher Fleetword, who had accompanied the troops, stood a little in advance of the Protector himself. Cromwell had a curiosity to inspect the resort of the Buccaneers; and, perfectly unconscious of Sir Willmott's escape, was petrified with horror and astonishment on seeing him under such appalling circumstances; the tumbling crags—the blazing fire—the dense smoke mounting like pillars of blackness into the clear and happy morning sky—and, above all, the agonised scorching figure of the wretched knight, writhing in the last throes of mortal agony!