"Ha, heretics!--ha, blasphemers!--I can at least avenge myself upon
you," cried Paslew, striking spurs into his charger. But ere he could
execute his purpose, Demdike had sprung backward, and, catching the
bridle, restrained the animal by a powerful effort.

"Hold!" he cried, in a voice of thunder, "or you will share their fate."

As the words were uttered, a dull, booming, subterranean sound was
heard, and instantly afterwards, with a crash like thunder, the whole of
the green circle beneath slipped off, and from a yawning rent under it
burst forth with irresistible fury, a thick inky-coloured torrent,
which, rising almost breast high, fell upon the devoted royalist
soldiers, who were advancing right in its course. Unable to avoid the
watery eruption, or to resist its fury when it came upon them, they were
instantly swept from their feet, and carried down the channel.

A sight of horror was it to behold the sudden rise of that swarthy
stream, whose waters, tinged by the ruddy glare of the beacon-fire,
looked like waves of blood. Nor less fearful was it to hear the first
wild despairing cry raised by the victims, or the quickly stifled
shrieks and groans that followed, mixed with the deafening roar of the
stream, and the crashing fall of the stones, which accompanied its
course. Down, down went the poor wretches, now utterly overwhelmed by
the torrent, now regaining their feet only to utter a scream, and then
be swept off. Here a miserable struggler, whirled onward, would clutch
at the banks and try to scramble forth, but the soft turf giving way
beneath him, he was hurried off to eternity.

At another point where the stream encountered some trifling opposition,