"I fell sick some three days since, and--and, fearing infection, Sir William Felton bade me be carried from his lodgings; the robbers, his men-at-arms, stripped me of all I possessed, and brought me to this dog-hole, to the care of this old hag. Oh, Eustace, I have heard her mutter prayers backwards; and last night--oh! last night! at the dead hour, there came in a procession--of that I would take my oath--seven black cats, each holding a torch with a blue flame, and danced around me, till one laid his paw upon my breast, and grew and grew, with its flaming eyes fixed on me, till it was as big as an ox, and the weight was intolerable, the while her spells were over me, and I could not open my lips to say so much as an Ave Mary. At last, the cold dew broke out on my brow, and I should have been dead in another instant, when I contrived to make the sign of the Cross, whereat they all whirled wildly round, and I fell--oh! I fell miles and miles downwards, till at last I found myself, at morning's light, with the hateful old witch casting water in my face. Oh, Eustace, take me away!" Such were the times, that Eustace Lynwood, with all his cool sense and mental cultivation, believed implicitly poor Leonard's delirious fancy--black cats and all; and the glances he cast at the poor old Spaniard were scarcely less full of terror and abhorrence, as he promised Leonard, whom he now regarded only in the light of his old comrade, that he should, without loss of time, be conveyed to his own tent. "But go not--leave me not," implored Leonard, clinging fast to him, almost like a child to its nurse, with a hand which was now cold as marble. "No; I will remain," said Eustace; "and you, Ingram, hasten to bring four of the men with the litter in which Master d'Aubricour came from Burgos. Hasten I tell you." Ingram, with his eyes dilated with horror, appeared but too anxious to quit this den, yet lingered. "I leave you not here, Sir Knight." "Thanks, thanks, John," replied the youth; "but remain I must, and will. As a Christian man, I defy the foul fiend and all his followers!"