. Then at
last he said in a silken voice and with a smile of final satisfaction:

"By the way, I fear I am very absent minded. There is one man specially
whom, somehow, I always forget. I always leave him lying about. Once
I mislaid him on the Cross of St. Paul's. So silly of me; and now I've
forgotten him in one of those little cells where your fire is burning.
Very unfortunate--especially for him." And nodding genially, he climbed
into his flying ship.

MacIan stood motionless for two minutes, and then rushed down one of the
suffocating corridors till he found the flames. Turnbull looked once at
Madeleine, and followed.

* * *

MacIan, with singed hair, smoking garments, and smarting hands and face,
had already broken far enough through the first barriers of burning
timber to come within cry of the cells he had once known. It was
impossible, however, to see the spot where the old man lay dead or
alive; not now through darkness, but through scorching and aching light.
The site of the old half-wit's cell was now the heart of a standing
forest of fire--the flames as thick and yellow as a cornfield. Their
incessant shrieking and crackling was like a mob shouting against an
orator. Yet through all that deafening density MacIan thought he heard
a small and separate sound. When he heard it he rushed forward as if to
plunge into that furnace, but Turnbull arrested him by an elbow.

"Let me go!" cried Evan, in agony; "it's the poor old beggar's
voice--he's still alive, and shouting for help."

"Listen!" said Turnbull, and lifted one finger from his clenched hand.

"Or else he is shrieking with pain," protested MacIan. "I will not
endure it."

"Listen!" repeated Turnbull, grimly. "Did you ever hear anyone shout for
help or shriek with pain in that voice?"

The small shrill sounds which came through the crash of the
conflagration were indeed of an odd sort, and MacIan turned a face of
puzzled inquiry to his companion.

"He is singing," said Turnbull, simply.

A remaining rampart fell, crushing the fire, and through the diminished
din of it the voice of the little old lunatic came clearer. In the heart
of that white-hot hell he was singing like a bird. What he was singing
it was not very easy to follow, but it seemed to be something about
playing in the golden hay.

"Good Lord!" cried Turnbull, bitterly, "there seem to be some advantages
in really being an idiot." The