Having by this time recovered from their surprise, Wyat and Surrey
dashed after him, and got so near him that they made sure of his
capture. But at the very moment they expected to reach him, he turned
his horse's head, and forced him to leap over the blazing boundary.
In vain the pursuers attempted to follow. Their horses refused to
encounter the flames; while Wyat's steed, urged on by its frantic
master, reared bolt upright, and dislodged him.
But the demon held on his way, apparently unscathed in the midst of
the flames, casting a look of grim defiance at his pursuers. As he
passed a tree, from which volumes of fire were bursting, the most
appalling shrieks reached his ear, and he beheld Morgan Fenwolf
emerging from a hole in the trunk. But without bestowing more than a
glance upon his unfortunate follower, he dashed forward, and becoming
involved in the wreaths of flame and smoke, was lost to sight.
Attracted by Fenwolf's cries, the beholders perceived him crawl out of
the hole, and clamber into the upper part of the tree, where he roared
to them most piteously for aid. But even if they had been disposed to
render it, it was impossible to do so now; and after terrible and
protracted suffering, the poor wretch, half stifled with smoke, and
unable longer to maintain his hold of the branch to which he crept, fell
into the flames beneath, and perished.
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