is notice. It was there--there, close
to him--under his very nose--the strong, acrid odour of decay--the
nauseating smell of the grave. Looking about he saw the floor was paved
with grave stones. In one corner stood a fine seventeenth century lead
coffin. A curious greyish light shone from it. O'Hagan's conjecture had
been right: there was something awful in the room, and with the terror
of nightmare seizing him swiftly by the throat and throttling him, he
awoke in a spasm of terror. O'Hagan was sitting bolt upright with the
impression that someone had flashed a lantern in his face, though the
barn was absolutely pitch dark. "I've had a most diabolical nightmare.
It was the drink," he said to himself, and decided to go to sleep again.
But the excessive heat of the barn would let him rest no longer. The
atmosphere seemed to be hot and pungent, and he groped about and opened
the door to let in some air. Almost at the same moment someone cried
"Fire!" and shapes of things began to define in a soft grey
glimmering;--and the gloom was broken up by a red and angry spurt of
flame from a wing of the old manor house. Again cries of "Fire!" came to
his ears, and grew and multiplied. O'Hagan was fully awake in an
instant, and running at top speed towards the old mansion. When he
reached it the whole sky about was illuminated by a red and angry light.
Almost at the moment of his arrival a tower of smoke arose in front of
the porch window, and with a tingling report, a pane fell outwards at
his feet. A crowd of cowed and white-faced country folk drew back when
he rushed up. Then he looked up at the porch window and saw what it was
that made the people go. He saw a girl's terrified face at the window.
"The girl I lifted the bag from," he said aloud. "She'll be burnt to
death."

The heavy hall doors were surrounded by the inmates of the house who had
escaped and O'Hagan pushed through them, and sprang up the broad
stairway mid choking volumes of smoke. When reached the room above the
porch the heat was fierce, and the roaring of the fire filled his ears,
and he had scarce carried the terrified girl out of the room when a side
door fell in, and a branch of flame shot brandishing through the
aperture, and the head of the stairs became lit up with a dreadful and
fluctuating glare. He carried her swiftly down the stairs, he feared
every moment that they would crumple and fall in. But he fought his way
grimly, and his jerky swear words wer