Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/326

298 sorcerer from whose arts they had already suffered. Suddenly, a click was heard, a beam of light appeared extending across the hallway, and lighting up the dust that had been raised by the trampling feet of the men-at-arms, and an uneasy murmur was heard amid the besiegers' ranks.

Then all eyes were turned toward the opposite wall—the wall directly over against the stairway—and there in a circular spot of light like a great full moon was seen—oh, sight of horror!—a fearful form!—the form and figure of the awful fiend that the Friar had painted upon a piece of glass—but now enlarged and almost life-size. It moved, it wavered, and then with a howl of fear the Count's men turned and began to struggle with one another to escape from the doorway out into the night. Even the soldiers of the garrison were sore affrighted, but on hearing Edgar raise the war-cry of the Mortimers, they recovered themselves and threw themselves upon the struggling crowd of besiegers.

In a few minutes the hall was clear of invaders, the door was closed and barred, and the danger was over. But it had been a narrow escape indeed.

When the garrison were able once more to look about them in the relighted hall, the first sight that attracted their attention was Friar Bacon who had come down into the midst of them holding the