ary
security. It was but for a moment, he knew, for the flames were already
taking hold upon the shed, but as he set his burden down he whispered
encouraging words.

"I know," she answered. "We are in God's hands. I would rather die than
to come into that man's power. But the door to the shed is open and the
way seems clear. Could we not escape even now?"

"Alas! madam, the flames make it as light as day around the cabin. They
would certainly see us. And yet if we stay, we burn. When the fire
reaches this straw above our heads we will try it."

"I would rather stay here," said Patricia.

Behind them the flames roared and crackled, the cabin burning like a
torch, and with the flames rose and fell the triumphant cries of the
savages, who, unaware of the existence of the tiny shed, so covered
with the vines that draped the cabin that it seemed one with it,
congregated in front of the gap in the wall where had been the door, and
waited for their still living victims to emerge from it.

"Look!" breathed Patricia, grasping Landless's arm.

They stood facing the open door of the shed, and gazing through it down
the lit slope of the knoll. Into the light, out of the darkness at the
foot of the hill, now glided a man, naked save for the loin cloth, and
painted with horrible devices; in the figure, noiseless and bent
forward, savage cunning; in the eyes, the lust for blood. In his
footsteps came his double, then a third, in all points exactly similar,
then a fourth, a fifth--a long line, creeping as silently as shadows--a
nightmare procession--up through the lurid light.

Landless drew Patricia further into the shadow.

"Wait," he said. "They may prove our deliverance."

The stealthy line reached the summit of the knoll, then broadened into a
disc, and swept past the frail shelter in which stood the fugitives. A
moment, and the war whoop rang out, to be answered by a burst of yells
from the Ricahecrians, and then by prolonged and awful clamor.

"Now is our time," said Landless.

Hand in hand they ran from the shed that was now in a light flame, and
down the slope up which had come the band of unconscious Samaritans.

"The stream!" said Landless. "There is a small raft upon it if they have
not destroyed it."

They made for the water, found the raft hidden in a clump of reeds and
uninjured, and stepped upon it. In ten minutes' time from the appearance
of the new factor in the sum they were moving steadily, if slowly,