A direful cry proceeded from his
enraged comrades. Every sword was drawn; and before the bewildered and
soul-struck earl could utter a word, the Furies blew their most
horrible blast through the chamber; and the half-frantic Mar beheld his
brave Scots at one moment victorious, and in the next the floor strewed
with their dead bodies. A new succession of blood-hounds had rushed in
at every door; and before the exterminating sword was allowed to rest,
the whole of his faithful troops lay around him, wounded and dying.
Several had fallen across his body, having warded with their lives the
strokes they believed leveled at his. In vain his voice had called
upon his men to surrender-in vain he had implored the iron-hearted
Soulis, and his coadjutor Aymer de Valence, to stop the havoc of death.
All now lay in blood; and the heat of the room, thronged by the
victors, became so intolerable that De Valence, for his own sake,
ordered the earl to be removed into another apartment.
Meanwhile, unconscious of these events, Helen had lain down on her bed,
to seek a few minutes' repose; and having watched the whole of the
preceding night, was sunk into a profound sleep.
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