The hot conflagration often drove Finland back, and made his very brains whirl; but he found other passages, across the yielding floors, and ascending from story to story, at last felt gratefully the cooler air upon his flushed and scorched face as he stepped upon the flame-lighted bartizan, and Annie, with a wild hysterical laugh, threw herself into his arms and immediately swooned. "Your hand, Lady Madertie--away, away!" cried he; "we have not a moment to lose;" and bearing his burden like a child, he attempted to descend the staircase; but lo! the forked flames shot up the spiral descent and drove him back upon the platform, which was thirty feet in height. All retreat was cut off. Annie was insensible, and Finland, as he leant against the parapet and pressed her to his breast and felt the masses of her soft hair blown against his face, became giddy with despair. At a little distance Matilda of Madertie, a beautiful blonde, was kneeling before her crucifix, and praying with all the happy fervour of a true Catholic; her long dark hair was streaming over her shoulders. Near her were several female servants, crouching against the parapet, and who, exhausted by the energy of their shrieks, and the near approach of death, lay in a kind of stupor, without motion, and seeming scarcely to breathe. Finland thought only of Annie; but a glance sufficed to show that their fate was sealed. The whole of the lofty house beneath the turret where they stood was an abyss of flames, and the glare, as they flashed upward and around him, compelled him to close his eyes; and thus a prey to grief and horror, he moved to and fro upon the toppling wall until the slate roofs sank crashing into the flaming pit with a roar, and now one vast sheet of broad red fire ascended into the air, making the calcined walls that confined it rend and tremble; a shout came up from the street below; the whole city, the hills and the sky seemed to be on fire. The flames came closer to Finland; he felt their scorching heat; the next seemed to sweep his cheek, and Annie's waving locks and his own, that mingled with them, were burned away together. "Laird of Finland," cried a soldier from below, "the tree---the tree!" "'Tis death at all events," replied the Cavalier, and quick as light, with his long scarf, he bound the slender waist of Annie to his own, and stretching from the wall, got into the lofty and strong poplar tree, and began to descend slowly and laboriously. A shout burst from the soldiers in the garden below. "God receive us!" cried Maud of Madertie, holding up her crucifix to heaven. At that moment the wall gave way beneath her, and she disappeared for ever.....