Great was the rage among the Danish chiefs, and wide the search for these presumptuous and bold aggressors. The host was all discouraged and amazed, and nought but terror reigned. Earldoms were offered for the audacious maids, dead or alive. But nor alive nor dead could they be found, either by friend or foe. O dreadful were the execrations uttered by the Danes. They called them demons, witches, and the worst of all incendiaries. Well they might. The terror of their arms was broken. Great was the rejoicing mid the hills and glens of Albyn, but the eastern vallies groaned beneath the fury of the savage Dane, and Christian blood was shed on every cross. The virgins waked at morn, and still the lamp sent forth its feeble glimmer through the cave. The day-beam through the crevice of the rock streamed in and mixed with it. The virgins strove to rise, to speak--to sing a morning hymn. But all their limbs were cold, and their tongues clove fast to their thirsty palates. Lena, first of all the three, upraised her pallid form, and on the lamp turning her drowsy eye, there did it settle, closed, and oped again, but still with faded and uncertain light, as if the mind were lacking. Long she sat, half raised in this uneasy torpid state,--this struggle 'twixt oblivion and life. Oft she assayed her sisters to awake, by naming them; but still as oft the names died in a whisper. By degrees her mind dawned into recollection, as the moon breaks o'er the sullen twilight. Then the wonders, that she had seen o'ernight, aroused her soul to all its wonted energy. She kneeled, and thanked her Maker for the great deliverance to them vouchsafed. And when her sisters woke, they woke to join her in a heavenly song. "What ails our sister? Here we are in safety. Why does our dear beloved not rest in peace? The night is not far spent: the dawn of morn is yet far distant. O dear Lena sleep. Sleep on, and take your rest. The morning sun is yet beneath the deep. Our limbs are cold; our eyes are heavy; yet we cannot rise, for we are weary, and not half awake." "Wake, my beloved sisters. It is time. The noon is at its height. See how the sun peeps through the granite cliffs, and on the stream sheds ray of trembling silver. Let us rise and talk of all the wonders we have seen."