'The time is come; I look around On those who now within are found; De Freston, hasten thou away, Nor let thy maiden longer stay. Lest thou shouldst rue the hapless hour Thou didst forsake thy lofty tower, And seek to minister thine aid Of friendship to a haughty maid. Go! haste away. Oh, couldst thou tell How deeply in my lowly cell I oft have prayed for thee and thine, Thou wouldst respect the hermit's shrine. The time is come! fair maid of peace, Ellen De Freston, thy release From danger here will only prove A greater danger in thy love. But haste away! thou dost not know The anger of thy deadly foe. The time is come! Good townsmen flee. These walls are tottering, and must be Known as a place of midnight feast, Where owls and bats by day will rest. But never more will matin bell, Or vespers' sound, be heard to tell Wykes' Bishop's priests the anthem raise, A duty to the saints they praise; But bell and belfry both shall fall Before another matin's call. 'The time is come, thou haughty maid, Whose eye now shining on the dead, With stain of pride and cruel scorn, Falls not on one who feels forlorn. Thou'lt feel the loftiness of pride When raised, unknown, unseen, denied. Thou think'st thyself to be a queen, And com'st to nothing in thy spleen! He comes to raise, and take thee home: Proud maid he comes--the time--' The old man's voice here totally failed him. A pallid hue was seen to spread itself over his countenance, which underwent a complete change. His head fell gently back against the stone pillar, and the hermit St. Ivan stood a corpse in the hall of Wykes' Bishop's Palace. At the same moment, the glass of those beautiful windows cracked from the very top of the arch to the bottom, and fell inwards--a tumbling; noise was heard--the outer walls fell down; and bishop, lord, lady, priest, burgess, townsman, visitor, monk, traveller, friar, and mendicant, together with porter, warder, serving-men, and slaves, all fled in terror over the drawbridge, leaving St. Ivan standing against the pillar, the only one who was unconscious of fear, inasmuch as he was dead. CHAPTER XVIII. THE FALL OF THE PALACE OF WYKES Terror was depicted in every countenance as the drawbridge, that mass of stone, iron, wood, and brick-work was seen to give way, and divide with a crash, falling into the waters of the deep moat which surrounded the palace. Every inmate of that place who could move escaped before this catastrophe took place; and a motley group of terrified faces stood looking upon the troubled waters, the yawning land, the falling walls, as one after another of those massive pieces of stone fell inwards upon the beautiful tesselated pavements of the courts, and refectory, and cells, which had been so kept by the Bishop's serving men.