Then, struggling strongly in their hands, the servitors carried the Lady Sybilla to the farther end of the chapel, where they abode on either side, holding her fast.  And as the last grains of sand began to swirl towards their fall and a little whirlpool to form funnel-wise in the midst of the hour-glass, the butcher was left alone with his victims upon the platform of the iron altar.

Gilles de Retz turned towards the image, and, lifting up his hand solemnly, he cried in a great voice, “O Barran-Sathanas, be pleased to behold this innocent blood spilled slowly in thine honour.  As the red fount flows and the red fire burns, restore my youth and make me strong.  Faithfully will I serve thee and thee alone, renouncing all other.  O Barran-Sathanas, great and only Lord, receive my sacrifice.  It is the hour!”

And so saying he laid hold of Maud Lindesay by the hair, and raised the curved knife on high.

Then from the end of the chapel to which the Lady Sybilla had been taken there came a sound.  With a great despairing effort she burst from her captors’ hands and ran forward.  She knelt down on the marble slab whereon the maids had stood at their first entering, and as she knelt she held aloft a golden crucifix.

“If there be a God in heaven, let him manifest himself now!” she cried, “by the virtue of this cross of His son Jesus Christ, I call upon Him!”

Then suddenly all the place was filled with a mighty rushing noise.  The last grains ran low in the hour-glass.  It shifted in its stand and turned over.  A tremor like that of an earthquake shook all the castle to its foundations.  The solid keep itself rocked like a vessel in a stormy sea.  The great image overturned, and by its fall Gilles de Retz was stricken senseless to the earth.  The next moment, like flood-gates burst by a mighty tide, the doors of the temple were opened with a clang, and through them a crowd of armed men came rushing in with triumphant shouts and angry cries of vengeance.

Sholto was far ahead of the others, and, as if led by the unerring instinct of love, he ran to the altar whereon his love lay white as death, but without a mark upon her fair body.

It was the work of a moment to cut their cords and chafe the numbed wrists and ankles.  James Douglas took the little Margaret.  Sholto had his sweetheart in his arms, while Laurence recovered quickly enough to aid his father in securing Gilles de Retz and his servants.  La Meffraye they took not, for she lay dead within the inner chamber, where yet burned the great fire which was used to consume the bodies of the demon’s victims.  Two gaping wounds were found in her breast, in the same place in which the dagger of Laurence MacKim had smitten the she-wolf as she sprang upon him.  But Astarte, woman witch or were-wolf, was never seen again, neither by starlight, moonlight, nor yet in the eye of day.  Truly of Gilles de Retz was it said, “His demon hath deserted him.”