It was past midnight, and the flickering embers threw a doubtful and uncertain gleam, at intervals, through the royal chamber, as it was then called, in the Castle of Fouldrey. All around was so still that the tramp of the sentry sounded like the tread of an armed host; sounds being magnified to a degree almost terrific, in the absence of others by which their intensity may be compared. Even the dash of the waves below the walls was heard in the deep and awful stillness of that portentous night. Simon started from the pallet whereon he lay, beside the couch of his master, at times looking wildly round, as though just rousing from some unquiet slumber, expecting, yet fearful of alarm. He lay down again with a deep sigh, muttering an Ave or a Paternoster as he closed his eyes. Again he raised his head, and a dark figure stood before him. "What wouldest thou?" inquired he, with great awe and reverence. "Ye must depart!" said a voice, deep and sepulchral. "Depart!" repeated the priest, with an expression of doubt and alarm. "Yes," said the mysterious figure; "wherefore dost thou inquire?" "Our only resting-place, our point of support, our sustenance and our refuge! Are we to leave this, and buffet with the winds and waves of misfortune, without a haven or a hiding-place? Surely"---- "I have said it, and to-morrow ye must depart!" "Whither?" inquired the priest; his opinion evidently controlled by the belief that a being of a superior nature was before him. "Beyond the Abbey of Furness. Choose a fitting place for your encampment, and there abide until I come." "It doth appear to my weak and unassisted sense," said the priest, in great agony of spirit, arising from his doubt and unbelief, "that it were the very utmost of madness and folly to give up this strong and almost impregnable position for one where our little army may be outflanked, and even surrounded by superior strength and numbers." "Disobey, and thy life, and all that are with thee, shall be cut off!" "And to-morrow! Ere we have news from our partisans in the south? Maurice will be here the third day at the latest." "I have said it," replied the figure, peremptorily; when suddenly, and, as it were, formed immediately at his side, appeared another figure, similar to the first, assuming nearly the same attitude and manner, save that the latter looked something taller and more majestic. "St Mary's grace and the abbot's, there 's twa of us!" cried the first figure, no less a personage than Dick Empson, who had been daring enough to adopt this disguise, according to the instructions he had received at the abbey. He uttered the words in a tone of thrilling and horrible apprehension, like the last shriek of the victim writhing in the fangs of his destroyer. The terrible apparition cried out to his surreptitious representative--"Nay, miscreant; but one. This thou shalt know, and feel too. Fool and impostor, thy last hour is come!"