With the fury of a maniac he rushed fearlessly towards the burning building. His people sprang after him. He had already reached the doorway, when the central stair fell with a tremendous crash within; and had not his followers dragged him back the instant before, he must have been crushed beneath the descending ruin.
“Father, father!” cried a piteous voice from the ground.
“Walter,” cried the unhappy Wolfe of Badenoch, running to lift up his son, “what hath befallen thee?—Speak.”
“I was knocked down and crushed by the men-at-arms as they rushed outwards,” said the youth faintly; “I do feel as if I had tane some sore inward bruises.”
“Merciful God!” cried the miserable father, removing his son farther from the danger. “But where is James?” demanded he, looking wildly about him.
“He also fell near me,” said Walter.
The attendants now ran forward, and amongst several wounded people who lay on the pavement they found and raised James Stewart, who was only known to be alive by his quick breathing. But the distracted father had little leisure to attend to either of these his wounded sons, and in an instant they were abandoned to the care of those about him; for the boy Duncan, his youngest and his darling child, the pride of his heart, was again heard to shriek from an upper window. The flames were rioting triumphantly within, and every possible approach to him was cut off. [[546]]
“Ladders, ladders!” cried he, in a frenzy; and his people set off in a hopeless search of what he called for.
“Ladders!” cried the Franciscan, with a voice like thunder, as he unexpectedly appeared behind the boy; “ladders! how dost thou dare to call for that help which thou didst refuse to yield to others? Now doth thy fiendish joy begin to be transmewed into mourning, thou accursed instrument in the hands of an incensed God. Already do two of thy lawless brood lie on that pavement, to be carried home with thee to linger and die; and now this child, thy youngest and dearest, shall be lost to thee by a more speedy fate.” He caught up the boy in his sinewy arms with a savage laugh of triumph, and held him aloft with a gripe so powerful, that his puny efforts to escape were utterly hopeless. “Ha, ha, ha! now may I laugh in my turn,” cried the Franciscan, with a yell that struck to the heart of the Wolfe of Badenoch, and subdued him at once.
“Mercy!” cried he, clasping his hands and wringing them together, and his breath came thick and laborious, so that he could hardly find utterance, as he looked up with stretched eyeballs, expecting every instant to behold the horrible spectacle of his best beloved son’s destruction. “Mercy!—fiend!—ha!—Ladders, ladders!—Oh, mercy, mercy!—Oh, spare my boy!—Oh, mercy, mercy—mercy on my boy!” He sank down on his knees, his broad chest heaving to his very cuirass with its labouring respiration, and his lips moving, even after all power of utterance was denied him.