Ha! son of Dermid, in good tune thou art here; save her, in mercy save her! I know not when, or how, or where we may meet again; I may not tarry here." He clasped her in his arms, imprinted an impassioned kiss on her now death-like cheek, placed her at once in the arms of the seer (who, robed as a minstrel, had stood concealed behind a projecting pillar during the ceremony, and now approached), and darted wildly from the church.

What a scene met his gaze! All the buildings within the ballium, with the sole exception of the church, were in one vivid blaze of fire; the old dry wood and thatch of which they were composed, kindling with a mere spark.

The wind blew the flames in the direction of the principal wall, which was already ignited from the heaps of combustibles that had been raised within for the purpose; although it was likely that, from its extreme thickness and strength, the fire had there done but partial evil, had not the conflagration within the court spread faster and nearer every moment, and from the blazing rafters and large masses of thatch caught by the wind and hurled on the very wall, done greater and more irreparable mischief than the combustibles themselves.

Up, up, seeming to the very heavens, the lurid flames ascended, blazing and roaring, and lighting the whole scene as with the glare of day.

Fantastic wreaths of red fire danced in the air against the pitchy blackness of the heavens, rising and falling in such graceful, yet terrible shapes, that the very eye felt riveted in admiration, while the heart quailed with horror.
Backwards and forwards gleamed the forms of men in the dusky glare; and oaths and cries, and the clang of swords, and the shrieks of women, terrified by the destruction they had not a little assisted to ignite--the sudden rush of horses bursting from their stables, and flying here and there, scared by the unusual sight and horrid sounds--the hissing streams of water which, thrown from huge buckets on the flames, seemed but to excite them to greater fury instead of lessening their devouring way--the crackling of straw and wood, as of the roar of a hundred furnaces--these were the varied sounds and sights that burst upon the eye and ear of Nigel, as, richly attired as he was, his drawn sword in his hand, his fair hair thrown back from his uncovered brow and head, he stood in the very centre of the scene.