“There lacked but this,” he said, his pale cheek kindling with resentment, “to root out my carnal reluctance to see his blood spilt. He is a prelatist, who has sought the camp under the disguise of an Erastian, and all, and more than all, that has been said of him must needs be verity. His blood be on his head, the deceiver!—let him go down to Tophet, with the ill-mumbled mass which he calls a prayer-book, in his right hand!”
“I take up my song against him!” exclaimed the maniac. “As the sun went back on the dial ten degrees for intimating the recovery of holy Hezekiah, so shall it now go forward, that the wicked may be taken away from among the people, and the Covenant established in its purity.”
He sprang to a chair with an attitude of frenzy, in order to anticipate the fatal moment by putting the index forward; and several of the party began to make ready their slaughter-weapons for immediate execution, when Mucklewrath’s hand was arrested by one of his companions.
“Hist!” he said—“I hear a distant noise.”
“It is the rushing of the brook over the pebbles,” said one.
“It is the sough of the wind among the bracken,” said another.
“It is the galloping of horse,” said Morton to himself, his sense of hearing rendered acute by the dreadful situation in which he stood; “God grant they may come as my deliverers!”
The noise approached rapidly, and became more and more distinct.
“It is horse,” cried Macbriar. “Look out and descry who they are.”
“The enemy are upon us!” cried one who had opened the window, in obedience to his order.