y
clear-sounding voice, which had thrice come into his dreams in
miraculous warning, could not be destined to fail in its mission. He
had heard it as distinctly as though its owner were standing there
visible before him; that he could swear until his dying day. Never
could that startling and signal triple warning have been conveyed to him
in vain--never, never could it have been sent to rescue him at the
moment of one imminent peril, only that he might succumb immediately to
another. It was a weird, sweet, irrational ground for hope, but he held
on to it firmly for all that.

Then when the frenzy of the war-dance was at its wildest, fiercest
pitch, the bright, gushing flames leaped suddenly on high, as, with a
roar like thunder, the roof fell in. A volume of dense, reddened smoke
shot upward to the heavens, while a vast cataract of whirling sparks
fell around in a seething, fiery hail. The uproarious mirth of the
savages changed into wild yells of alarm and dismay as they scurried
hither and thither to avoid the falling embers; but the panic was only
momentary. Grasping at once the harmless nature of this startling
change, they quickly crowded up again, making the night ring with their
boisterous laughter, as they chaffed each other vociferously over the
scare they had undergone.

For a little while they stood staring at the smoking, glowing embers,
chattering volubly. Then Roden, crouching half-buried in his ditch,
could feel the vibration of the sod wall, could hear the approach of
voices now sounding almost in his ear. Ah! They had discovered his
presence. With heart beating and teeth locked together he held his
revolver ready in his right hand. His hour had come. One short, sharp
struggle, the crash of a shot or two, then the searing anguish of the
sharp blades buried in his vitals, the sickening gasp for life, and--his
being would have ceased.

Again the ground shook above him. In the dim light he could make out
numberless shapes swarming over the sod wall. They dropped into the
garden, right on, right over the spot where he had at first lain
concealed. Well indeed was it that he had changed his position. And
now the object of this new move became manifest. No suspicion of his
presence had led to it. Another motive was at work, which it was as
well he had not till then thought of, else had he risked certain
detection in flight, rather than trust to a hiding-place under the
circumstances so tra