The black blank wall of the pines retreated and they found themselves suddenly with the stars twinkling infinitely chill and remote above them.
They were now, however, no more alone, for round them circled and echoed the crying of many packs of wolves.

In the forest of Machecoul the guardian demons of its lord had been let loose, and throughout all its borders poor peasant folk shivered in their beds, or crouched behind the weak defences of their twice barred doors.

For they knew that the full pack never hunted in the Pays de Retz without bringing death to some wanderer found defenceless within the borders of that region of dread.
"Let us stop here," said Sholto; "if these howling demons attack us, we are at least in somewhat better case to meet them and fight it out till the morning than in the dense darkness of the woods." In the centre of the open glade in which they found themselves, they stumbled against the trunk of a huge pine which had been blasted by lightning.

It still stood erect with its withered branches stretching bare and angular away from the sea.

About this the three Scots posted themselves, their backs to the corrugations of the rotting stump, and their swords ready in their hands to deal out death to whatever should attack them.
Well might Malise declare the powers of evil were abroad that night.
At times the three men seemed wholly ringed with devilish cries.