The stream next invades the cottage, breaks in through door and window,
and filling all the lower part of the tenement, in a few minutes
converts it into a heap of ruin. On goes the destroyer, tearing up more
trees, levelling more houses, and filling up a small pool, till the
latter bursts its banks, and, with an accession to its force, pours
itself into a mill-dam. Here its waters are stayed until they find a
vent underneath, and the action of the stream, as it rushes downwards
through this exit, forms a great eddy above, in which swim some living
things, cattle and sheep from the fold not yet drowned, mixed with
furniture from the cottages, and amidst them the bodies of some of the
unfortunate men-at-arms which have been washed hither.

But, ha! another thundering crash. The dam has burst. The torrent roars
and rushes on furiously as before, joins its forces with Pendle Water,
swells up the river, and devastates the country far and wide.[1]

The abbot and his companions beheld this work of destruction with
amazement and dread. Blanched terror sat in their cheeks, and the blood
was frozen in Paslew's veins; for he thought it the work of the powers
of darkness, and that he was leagued with them. He tried to mutter a
prayer, but his lips refused their office. He would have moved, but his
limbs were stiffened and paralysed, and he could only gaze aghast at the
terrible spectacle.

Amidst it all he heard a wild burst of unearthly laughter, proceeding,
he thought, from Demdike, and it filled him with new dread. But he could
not check the sound, neither could he stop his ears, though he would
fain have done so. Like him, his companions were petrified and
speechless with fear.