With that he struck a spark of fire among the black sand, as the rest supposed it to be, that lay among his feet. The sand caught fire,--the flame ran sputtering around the western battlement,--and the next moment the steward and his tub bolted away into the firmament in a tremendous flash of fire, and with a sound so loud that it shook the castle to its foundations. Some averred that they saw, through the fire and smoke, a momentary glance of him and the cistern both, as they pierced the cloud towards the north; but nothing further was heard or seen,--and, in a second of time, all was quite and gloomy above and around as it had been before. CHAPTER IV. The wind blew as 'twould blawn it's last, The thickening showers rose on the blast; The speedy gleam the darkness swallowed, Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed; That night a child might understand The deil had business on his hand! _Tam o' Shanter._ Long was it before any of the astonished spectators opened their lips. The shock had almost deprived them of sense, sight, and motion; and when they began to articulate, it was only to utter short exclamations, and names of saints. Tam Craik was the first who ventured a remark, which was in the following words:--"By the Lord Robin!" (meaning, it was supposed, the king,) "The deil has flown away wi' him bodily in a flash o' fire!" The great Master stood mute with astonishment; he even trembled with dread; and appeared once as if he would have fallen at the friar's feet: But he never said, Where is my seneschal gone? Whither hast thou sent him? seeming rather to succumb to his guests for the time, being as a man utterly at their mercy. His powerful and malevolent spirits had left him by his command; his steward, and only human attendant, had been blown into the air; and as for the miserable night-hag, they had seen no more of her since her escape from the prison vault, and they wist not whether she remained in the castle, or had fled from it out of dread of the symbols of the Christian religion, which she had seen about the friar, and the effects of which she had felt in frustrating her potent spells. The wizard had therefore none to execute his commands, and appeared a being quite forlorn, as well as greatly troubled in his mind. No one ever knew to this day by what means the wicked seneschal was borne away among the clouds in a column of fire and smoke; and those who witnessed it spread the word over the country, that the devil took him away with a great roar amid fire and brimstone; and that, after having him up among the dark clouds, he tore him all to pieces. It was a fact that one of the steward's mangled limbs was found hanging on a tree, among some thick branches, in the wood of Sheil's Heuch, over against the castle, which gave some countenance to the report; and no farther remnants of him were ever discovered.