n to woman cowardice and
that will break my heart!"

Again I bade him be of good courage, assuring him, not derisively, as it
looks when 'tis written out, that the fire would presently medicine the
chilling. In the middle of the saying the lighted brand was fetched and
thrust among our fagotings, and the upward-curling smoke wreaths made me
gasp and strangle at the finish.

For a little time after the sucking in of that first
smoke-breath--nature's anodyne for any of her poor creatures doomed to
die by fire--I saw and heard less clearly and suffered only by
anticipation. But to this day the smell of burning pine-wood is like a
sleeping potion to me; and the sleep it brings is full of dreams vaguely
troubled.

So, while the Indians danced and leaped about us, brandishing their
weapons and chanting the captives' death song, and while the blue and
yellow tongues of flame mounted from twig to twig, climbing stealthily
to flick at us like little vanishing demon whips, I saw and heard and
felt as one remote from all the torture turmoil of the moment. Through
the dimming haze of sleeping sensibility the dancing savages became as
marionettes in some cunning puppet show; and the blood stained figures
stiffening against their log took shapes less horrifying.

'Twas Dick's voice, coming, as it seemed, from a mighty distance, that
broke the spell and brought me back to quickened agonies. He spoke in
panting gasps, as the smoke would let him.

"One word, Jack, before we go--go to our own place. He said--he said she
would be free to--to marry him. Tell me ... O God in Heaven!"

His agony was a lash to cut me deeper than any flicking demon whip of
flame, yet I must needs add to it.

"Aye, Richard, I have wronged you, wronged you desperately; can you hear
me yet? I say I have wronged you, and I shall die the easier if you'll
forgive--"

Once more the smoke, rising again in denser clouds, cut me off, and
through the blinding blue haze of it I saw the Indians running up with
green branches to beat it down lest it should spoil their sport oversoon
by smothering us out of hand.

With the chance to gasp and breathe again I would have confessed in full
to Richard Jennifer and had him shrive me if he would. But when I
called, he did not answer. His head was rolling from side to side, and
his handsome young face was all drawn and distorted as in the awful
grimaces of the death throe.

You will not wonder that I could not look at h