“Well, Scott,” he said, “what have we here?”

“A man who has volunteered a statement, sir.”

“Oh!  Well, my man, can you say anything concerning all this disturbance that we have here?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what did you come here for?”

“I understood the sergeant to want some one who could speak of Sir Francis Varney.”

“Well?”

“I saw him.”

“Where?”

“In the house.”

“Exactly; but have you not seen him out of it?”

“Not since; nor any one else, I believe.”

“Where was he?”

“Upstairs, where he suddenly disappeared, and nobody can tell where he may have gone to.  But he has not been seen out of the house since, and they say he could not have gone bodily out if they had not seen him.”

“He must have been burnt,” said the officer, musingly; “he could not escape, one would imagine, without being seen by some one out of such a mob.”

“Oh, dear no, for I am told they placed a watch at every hole, window, or door however high, and they saw nothing of him—­not even fly out!”

“Fly out!  I’m speaking of a man!”

“And I of a vampire!” said the man carelessly.

“A vampyre!  Pooh, pooh!”

“Oh no!  Sir Francis Varney is a vampyre!  There can be no sort of doubt about it.  You have only to look at him, and you will soon be satisfied of that.  See his great sharp teeth in front, and ask yourself what they are for, and you will soon find the answer.  They are to make holes with in the bodies of his victims, through which he can suck their blood!”

The officer looked at the man in astonishment for a few moments, as if he doubted his own ears, and then he said,—­

“Are you serious?”

“I am ready to swear to it.”

“Well, I have heard a great deal about popular superstition, and thought I had seen something of it; but this is decidedly the worst case that ever I saw or heard of.  You had better go home, my man, than, by your presence, countenance such a gross absurdity.”

“For all that,” said the man, “Sir Francis Varney is a vampyre—­a blood-sucker—­a human blood-sucker!”

“Get away with you,” said the officer, “and do not repeat such folly before any one.”

The man almost jumped when he heard the tone in which this was spoken, for the officer was both angry and contemptuous, when he heard the words of the man.

“These people,” he added, turning to the sergeant, “are ignorant in the extreme.  One would think we had got into the country of vampires, instead of a civilised community.”

The day was going down now; the last rays of the setting sun glimmered upwards, and still shone upon the tree-tops.  The darkness of night was still fast closing around them.  The mob stood a motley mass of human beings, wedged together, dark and sombre, gazing upon the mischief that had been done—­the work of their hands.  The military stood at ease before the burning pile, and by their order and regularity, presented a contrast to the mob, as strongly by their bright gleaming arms, as by their dress and order.