Attributing its outbreak to supernatural agency, the party gazed on in
wonder at the fire, and rode round it as closely as their steeds would
allow them. But though they tarried till the flames had abated, and little
was left of the noble grove but a collection of charred and smoking
stumps, nothing was seen of the fiend or of the hapless girl he had
carried off. It served to confirm the notion of the supernatural origin of
the fire, in that it was confined within the mystic circle, and did not
extend farther into the woods.
At the time that the flames first burst forth, and revealed the
countenances of the lookers--on, it was discovered that the self-styled
Dacre and Cryspyn were no other than the king and the Duke of Suffolk.
"If this mysterious being is mortal, he must have perished now,"
observed Henry; "and if he is not, it is useless to seek for him further."
Day had begun to break as the party quitted the scene of devastation.
The king and Suffolk, with the archers, returned to the castle; but Wyat,
Surrey, and Richmond rode towards the lake, and proceeded along its
banks in the direction of the forester's hut.
Their progress was suddenly arrested by the sound of lamentation, and
they perceived, in a little bay overhung by trees, which screened it from
the path, an old man kneeling beside the body of a female, which he
had partly dragged out of the lake.
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