Surrounded on all sides by falling and flaming trees, and a terrific glare which, brightened and reddened as the forky flames waved in every puff of wind; while the roar of the conflagration, the hiss of the green branches, and the crackling of the knots and fissures as the old fir trunks were torn asunder, increased, till at last we felt the frightful glow upon our faces; and the burning moss, as the spreading fire consumed it almost under our feet, raised a smoke that had already suffocated more than one of my poor comrades. Driven from their nests in the branches above, and their lairs in the roots and brambles below, the birds and other wild tenants of the wood flitted about us, blinded by terror. Bewildered as we were, another minute had perhaps destroyed us; for the crash of every tapering pine, as it fell prostrate across our devious path, shot a million of sparkles and burning brands in every direction. Suddenly I perceived one dark spot! There a rivulet trickled through the moss, in a broad and swampy channel, which the flame could not pass, and thus as yet the trees that overhung it were untouched. "This way, comrades!" I exclaimed; "follow me--quick! Let us pursue the track of the burn; on--on! we have not an instant to lose." This saved us; but still we had many perils to encounter, and by the way lost several men, who were suffocated by the smouldering moss, and the smoke it emitted, or were mutilated by the explosion of their bandoliers, or by the falling trees; for every moment, as I have said, some tall pine sheeted with flame came thundering down across our tortuous path, hissing in the little stream, scorching our bare legs, and blinding us still more with sparks and smoke. In a few minutes we were free, though fifteen men were left behind us; and next day we found them roasted in their corslets like tortoises in their shells. On getting clear of this frightful place, the smoke of which enveloped all the country, and rolled across the waters of the Sound, we found ourselves upon the highway, where three of our sentinels, who had been posted in front of the wood, joined us. The fourth we found lying dead, with a poniard buried in his neck, and his musket gone, together with all the silver buttons which had adorned his doublet. To the poniard was attached a slip of paper. On this one word was written--_Bandolo!_ "And this act of horror has been his!" I exclaimed, looking back to the yet blazing wood; "truly, Count Tilly fights with worthy weapons." "Tush!" said Lieutenant Lumsdame, shaking from his plaid and hair the sparks that yet retained there; "I heard Tilly order poor Dunbar's heart to be torn from his gallant breast, and then to be forced between his teeth! He saw this done by the hands of Bandolo, and then he turned deliberately to pray to an old pewter Madonna that adorns the band of his steeple-crowned hat. Ah!--you don't quite know Tilly yet."