om through which the Frenchman had
escaped. The open window being before me, I did nob deliberate a second,
but mounting the table, crept through it, and fell heavily on the turf
outside. In a moment after I rallied, and staggering onwards, reached a
potato field, where, overcome by pain and weakness, I sank into one of
the furrows, scarcely conscious of what had occurred.

Weak and exhausted as I was, I could still hear the sounds of the
conflict that raged within the cabin. Gradually, however, they grew
fainter and fainter, and at last subsided altogether. Yet I feared to
stir; and although night was now falling, and the silence continued
unbroken, I lay still, hoping to hear some well-known voice, or even
the footstep of some one belonging to the house. But all was calm, and
nothing stirred; the very air, too, was hushed,--not a leaf moved in the
thin, frosty atmosphere. The dread of finding the soldiers in possession
of the cabin made me fearful of quitting my hiding place, and I did not
move. Some hours had passed over ere I gained courage enough to raise my
head and look about me.

My first glance was directed towards the distant highroad, where I
expected to have seen some of the party who attacked the cabin, but
far as my eye could reach, no living thing was to be seen; my next was
towards the cabin, which, to my horror and amazement, I soon perceived
was enveloped in a thick, dark smoke, that rolled lazily from the
windows and doorway, and even issued from the thatched roof. As I
looked, I could hear the crackling of timber and the sound of wood
burning. These continued to increase; and then a red, forked flame shot
through one of the casements, and turning upwards, caught the thatch,
where, passing rapidly across the entire roof, it burst into a broad
sheet of fire, which died out again as rapidly, and left the gloomy
smoke triumphant.

Meanwhile a roaring sound, like that of a furnace, was heard from
within; and at last, with an explosion like a mortar, the roof burst
open, and the bright blaze sprang forth. The rafters were soon enveloped
in fire, and the heated straw rose into the air, and floated in thin
streaks of flame through the black sky. The door cases and the window
frames were all burning, and marked their outlines against the dark
walls: and as the thatch was consumed, the red rafters were seen like
the ribs of a skeleton; but they fell in one by one, sending up in their
descent millions of red