"If this goes on," Prince Rupert said, with a laugh; "there will be
nothing but our swords left. We are melting away fast, like candles
before a fire. Truly I do not think that there was so much water in a
man as has floated down from me during the last half-hour."
Harry was so placed that he could command a sight through the loophole,
and he exclaimed, "They are riding away!"
This was indeed the case. The whole building was now one vast furnace,
and having from the first no hope that their friends, if there, could
have survived, they had, hearing that Lady Sidmouth and her daughter had
been taken to Storton, determined to ride thither to take them from the
hands of the Roundheads, and to learn from them the fate of their
leaders.
Another two hours passed. The heat was still tremendous, but they could
not feel that it was increasing. Once or twice they heard terrific
crashes, as portions of the wall fell. They would long since have been
roasted, were it not for the cool air which flowed in through the long
loophole, and keeping up a circulation in the chamber, lowered the
temperature of the air within it. At the end of the two hours Harry gave
a shout.
"They are coming back."
The light had now sunk to a quiet red glow, so that beyond the fact that
a party was approaching, nothing could be seen. They rode, however,
directly toward the turret, and then, when they halted, Harry saw the
figures of two ladies who were pointing toward the loophole.
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