d Bellevue
had been set on fire in several places.

He inhaled it once or twice and then he saw again the shadowy figure
flitting down to the passage and to a small door that, unnoticed by the
soldiers, opened on the kitchen garden in the rear of the house.

Dick never acted more promptly. Instantly he fired his pistol into the
ceiling, the report roaring in the confined spaces of the house, and
then shouting with all his might: "Fire! Fire! Fire!" as he dashed down
the passage he ran through the little door, which the intruder had left
open, and pursued him in the darkness and rain into the garden. There
was a flash ahead of him and a bullet whistled past his ear, but he
merely increased his speed and raced in the direction of the flash. As
he ran he heard behind him a tremendous uproar, the voices and tread
of hundreds of soldiers, awakened suddenly, and he knew that they would
rush through Bellevue in search of the fires.

But it was Dick's impulse to capture the daring intruder who would
destroy the house over their heads. Built of wood, it would burn so
fast, once the torches were set, that the rain would have little effect
upon the leaping flames, unless measures were taken at once, which he
knew that the regiment would do, under such a capable man as Colonel
Winchester. Meanwhile he was hot in pursuit.

The trail which was not that of footsteps, but of a shadowy figure, ran
between tall and close rows of grapevines so high on wooden framework
that they hid any one who passed. The suspicion that Dick had held at
first was confirmed. This was no stranger, no intruder. He knew every
inch of both house and grounds, and, after having set the house on fire,
he had selected the only line of retreat, but a safe one, through the
thick and lofty vegetation of the garden, which ran down to the edge
of the ravine in the rear, where he could slip quietly under the fence,
drop through the thick grass into the ravine unseen by the pickets, and
escape at his leisure in the darkness.

Dick was so sure of his theory that he strained every effort to overtake
the figure which was flitting before him like a ghost. In his eagerness
he had forgotten to shout any alarm about the pickets, but it would
have been of no avail, as most of them, under the impulse of alarm, had
rushed forward to help extinguish the fires.

He saw the fugitive reach the end of the garden, drop almost flat, and
then slip under a broken place in the palings