upon the open street; here and there a house was being besieged, the

defenders throwing out stools and tables on the heads of the assailants.

The snow was strewn with arms and corpses; but except for these partial

combats the streets were deserted, and the houses, some standing open,

and some shuttered and barricaded, had for the most part ceased to give

out smoke.

Dick, threading the skirts of these skirmishers, led his followers

briskly in the direction of the abbey church; but when he came the length

of the main street, a cry of horror broke from his lips. Sir Daniel's

great house had been carried by assault. The gates hung in splinters

from the hinges, and a double throng kept pouring in and out through the

entrance, seeking and carrying booty. Meanwhile, in the upper storeys,

some resistance was still being offered to the pillagers; for just as

Dick came within eyeshot of the building, a casement was burst open from

within, and a poor wretch in murrey and blue, screaming and resisting,

was forced through the embrasure and tossed into the street below.

The most sickening apprehension fell upon Dick. He ran forward like one

possessed, forced his way into the house among the foremost, and mounted

without pause to the chamber on the third floor where he had last parted

from Joanna. It was a mere wreck; the furniture had been overthrown, the

cupboards broken open, and in one place a trailing corner of the arras

lay smouldering on the embers of the fire.

Dick, almost without thinking, trod out the incipient conflagration, and

then stood bewildered. Sir Daniel, Sir Oliver, Joanna, all were gone;

The Black Arrow