At the same moment there came excited cries from the horsemen who followed.  Easily visible now against the black background of the night, there showed a flower of light, rising and falling, strengthening.

“Drive!” cried Dunwody; and now the sting of the lash urged on the weary team.  They swung around the turn of the shut-in, and came at full speed into the approach across the valley.  Before them lay the great Tallwoods mansion house.  It stood before them a pillar of fire, prophetic, it might be repeated, of a vast and cleansing catastrophe soon to come to that state and this nation; a catastrophe which alone could lay the specter in our nation’s house.

They were in time to see the last of the disaster, but too late to offer remedy.  By the time the coach had pulled up at the head of the gravel way, before the yet more rapid horsemen had flung themselves from their saddles, the end easily was to be guessed.  The house had been fired in a half score places.  At the rear, even now, the long streaks of flame were reaching up to the cornice, casting all the front portion of the house, and the lawn which lay before it, into deep shadow.  The shrubbery and trees thus outlined showed black and grim.

The men of the Tallwoods party dashed here and there among the covering of trees back of the house.  There were shots, hastily exchanged, glimpses of forms slinking away across the fields.  But the attacking party had done their work; and now, alarmed by the sudden appearance of a resistance stronger than they had expected, were making their escape.  Once in a while there was heard a loud derisive shout, now and again the crack of a spiteful rifle, resounding in echoes against the hillsides.

Dunwody was among the first to disappear, in search of these besiegers.  For an instant Josephine was left alone, undecided, alarmed, in front of the great doors.  Eleazar, to save the plunging team, had now wheeled the vehicle back, and was seeking a place for it lower down the lawn.  It was as she stood thus hesitant that there approached her from some point in the bushes a disheveled figure.  Turning, she recognized none other than old Sally, her former jailer and sometime friend.

“Sally,” she cried; “Sally!  What is it?  Who has done this?  Where are they?  What is it all about?  Can’t anything be done?”

But Sally, terrified beyond reason, could exclaim only one word:  “Whah is he?  Whah’s Mr. Dunwody?  Quick!” An instant later, she too was gone.

At the same moment, Dunwody, weapon in hand, dashed around the corner of the house and up on the front gallery.  Apparently he was searching for some one whom he did not find.  Here he was soon discovered by the old negro woman, who began an excited harangue, with wild gesticulations.  To Josephine it seemed that Sally pointed toward the interior of the house, as though she beckoned, explained.  She heard his deep-voiced cry.