But within those blistering walls, who can tell what ghastly revels the mad flames were having over their bound and solitary victim!  Perhaps, as she lay there with distended jaws, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, that brain, amid the visions of its madness, became conscious of the first kindling of the subtle element that was so soon to clasp her in its terrible embrace.  How dreadful, while the long minutes dragged, to watch its stealthy progress, and to feel that one little effort of an unbound hand could avert the danger, and yet to lie there helpless, motionless, without even the power to give utterance to the shriek of terror which strained her throat to suffocation.  And then, as the creeping flame became stronger and brighter, and took long and silent leaps from one object to another, gliding along the lathed, and papered wall, rolling and curling along the raftered ceiling, would not the wretched woman, raving already in delirium, behold the spectres that her madness feared, beckoning to her in the lurid glare, or gliding in and out among the wild fires that whirled in fantastic gambols around and overhead!  Nearer and nearer yet the rolling flame advances; it commences to hiss and murmur in its progress; it wreathes itself about the chairs and tables, and laps up the little pool of brandy spilled from the forgotten flask; it plays about her feet, and creeps lazily amid the folds of her gown, yet wet from the brook in which she had concealed herself that day; it scorches and shrivels up the flesh upon her limbs, while pendent fiery tongues leap from the burning rafters, and kiss her cheeks and brows where the black veins swell almost to bursting; every muscle and nerve of her frame is strained with convulsive efforts to escape, but the cords only sink into the bloating flesh, and she lies there crisping like a log, and as powerless to move.  The dense, black smoke hangs over her like a pall, but prostrate as she is, it cannot sink low enough to suffocate and end her agony.  How the bared bosom heaves! how the tortured limbs writhe, and the blackening cuticle emits a nauseous steam!  The black blood oozing from her nostrils proclaims how terrible the inward struggle.  The whole frame bends and shrinks, and warps like a fragment of leather thrown into a furnace—­the flame has reached her vitals—­at last, by God’s mercy, she is dead.

CHAPTER XX.

At dawn of the morning of the 21st of July, an officer in plain undress was busily writing at a table in a plainly-furnished apartment of a farm-house near Manassas.  He was of middle age and medium size, with dark complexion, bold, prominent features, and steady, piercing black eyes.  His manner and the respectful demeanor of several officers in attendance, rather than any insignia of office which he wore, bespoke him of high rank; and the earnest attention which he bestowed upon his labor, together with the numerous orders, written and verbal, which he delivered at intervals to members of his staff, denoted that an affair of importance was in hand.  Several horses, ready caparisoned, were held by orderlies at the door-way, and each aid, as he received instructions, mounted and dashed away at a gallop.