The door lay on the ground smashed and broken.  It had been driven to kindling wood from within.  Its inner surface was dinted and riven by the iron shoes of the frightened steeds, but the horses themselves were nowhere to be found.  They had broken their halters and vanished.  The three Scots were left in the heart of the enemy’s country without means of escape save upon their own feet.

But the horror which lay behind them in the house of La Meffraye drove them on.

Almost without knowing whither they went, they turned their faces towards the west, in the direction in which lay Machecoul, the castle of the dread Lord of all the Pays de Retz.  Malise, as was his custom, walked in front, Sholto and the Lord James Douglas a step behind.

A chill wind from the sea blew through the forest.  The pines bent soughing towards the adventurers.  The night grew denser and blacker about them, as with the wan waters of the marismas on one side and the sombre arches of the forest on the other, they advanced sword in hand, praying that that which should happen might happen quickly.

But as they went the woods about them grew clamorous with horrid noises.  All the evil beasts of the world seemed abroad that night in the forests of Machecoul.  Presently they issued forth into a more open space.  The greyish dark of the turf beneath their feet spread further off.  The black blank wall of the pines retreated and they found themselves suddenly with the stars twinkling infinitely chill and remote above them.

They were now, however, no more alone, for round them circled and echoed the crying of many packs of wolves.  In the forest of Machecoul the guardian demons of its lord had been let loose, and throughout all its borders poor peasant folk shivered in their beds, or crouched behind the weak defences of their twice barred doors.  For they knew that the full pack never hunted in the Pays de Retz without bringing death to some wanderer found defenceless within the borders of that region of dread.

“Let us stop here,” said Sholto; “if these howling demons attack us, we are at least in somewhat better case to meet them and fight it out till the morning than in the dense darkness of the woods.”

In the centre of the open glade in which they found themselves, they stumbled against the trunk of a huge pine which had been blasted by lightning.  It still stood erect with its withered branches stretching bare and angular away from the sea.  About this the three Scots posted themselves, their backs to the corrugations of the rotting stump, and their swords ready in their hands to deal out death to whatever should attack them.

Well might Malise declare the powers of evil were abroad that night.  At times the three men seemed wholly ringed with devilish cries.  Yells and howls as of triumphant fiends were borne to their ears upon the western wind.  The noises approached nearer, and presently out of the dark of the woods shadowy forms glided, and again Sholto heard the soft pad-pad of many feet.  Gleaming eyes glared upon them as the wolves trotted out and sat down in a wide circle to wait for the full muster of the pack before rushing their prey.