form of its flame came and went in the folds, and the heavy sky was
hovering. All around it was hung with red, deep in twisted columns, and
then a giant beard of fire streamed throughout the darkness. The sullen
hills were flanked with light, and the valleys chined with shadow, and
all the sombrous moors between awoke in furrowed anger.

But most of all the flinging fire leaped into the rocky mouth of the
glen below me, where the horsemen passed in silence, scarcely deigning
to look round. Heavy men and large of stature, reckless how they bore
their guns, or how they sate their horses, with leathern jerkins, and
long boots, and iron plates on breast and head, plunder heaped behind
their saddles, and flagons slung in front of them; I counted more than
thirty pass, like clouds upon red sunset. Some had carcasses of sheep
swinging with their skins on, others had deer, and one had a child flung
across his saddle-bow. Whether the child were dead, or alive, was more
than I could tell, only it hung head downwards there, and must take the
chance of it. They had got the child, a very young one, for the sake of
the dress, no doubt, which they could not stop to pull off from it; for
the dress shone bright, where the fire struck it, as if with gold and
jewels. I longed in my heart to know most sadly what they would do with
the little thing, and whether they would eat it.

It touched me so to see that child, a prey among those vultures, that in
my foolish rage and burning I stood up and shouted to them leaping on
a rock, and raving out of all possession. Two of them turned round, and
one set his carbine at me, but the other said it was but a pixie, and
bade him keep his powder. Little they knew, and less thought I, that the
pixie then before them would dance their castle down one day.

[Illustration: 026.jpg Said it was but a Pixie]