Nearer the door, where he stood in the densest gloom, something moved to and fro, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness Laurence could see that it was the bent figure of a woman.  He could not distinguish her face, but it was certainly a woman of great age and bodily weakness, whose tangled hair hung down her back, and who halted curiously upon one foot as she walked.  She was bending over a low couch, whereon lay a little shrouded figure, from which proceeded the low whimpering sound which he had heard from without.  But even at that moment, as he waited trembling at the door, the moaning ceased, and there ensued a long silence, in which Laurence could clearly distinguish the beating of his own heart.  It sounded loud in his ears as a drum that beats the alarm in the streets of a city.

The figure of the woman bent low to the couch, and, after a pause, with a satisfied air she threw a white cloth over the shrouded form which lay upon it.  Then, without looking towards the door where Laurence stood, she went to the great iron altar at the upper end of the weird chapel and threw something on the red embers which glowed upon it.

“Barran—­most mighty Barran-Sathanas, accept this offering, and reveal thyself to my master!” she said in a voice like a chant.

A greenish smoke of stifling odour rose and filled all the place, and through it the huge horned figure above the altar seemed to turn its head and look at the boy.

Laurence could scarcely repress a cry of terror.  He set his hand to the door, and lo! as it had opened, so it appeared to shut of itself.  He sank almost fainting against the cold iron bars of the window which looked out upon the courtyard below.  The wind blew in upon him sweet and cool, and with it there came again the sound of the singing of the choir.  They were practising the song of the Holy Innocents, which, by command of the marshal himself, Precentor Renouf had set to excellent and accordant music of his own invention.

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
In Ramah,
Lamentations and bitter weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refused to be comforted: 
For her children,
Because they were not.”

Obviously there was some mistake or lack of attention on the part of the choir, for the last line had to be repeated three times.

“Because they were not.”

CHAPTER LI

THE MARSHAL’S CHAMBER

There came a low voice in Laurence MacKim’s ear, chill and sinister:  “You do well to look out upon the fair world.  None knoweth when we may have to leave it.  Yonder is a star.  Look well at it.  They say God made it.  Perhaps He takes more interest in it than in the concerns of this other world He hath made.”

The son of Malise MacKim gripped himself, as it were, with both hands, and turned a face pale as marble to look into the grim countenance which hid the soul of the Lord of Machecoul.