“Silver, make for the motor; it’s near the camp; follow the path,” ordered Miss Greeby breathlessly; “there’s no time to be lost.  As to this old devil—­” she snatched up a lamp as the secretary dashed out of the house, and flung it fairly at Gentilla Stanley.  In a moment the old woman was yelling with agony, and scrambled to her feet a pillar of fire.  Miss Greeby laughed in a taunting manner and hurled another lamp behind the sofa.  “You’d have given me up also, would you, Garvington?” she cried in her deep tone; “take that, and that, and that.”

Lamp after lamp was smashed and burst into flames, until only one was left.  Then Miss Greeby, seeing with satisfaction that the entire room was on fire and hearing the sound of hasty footsteps and the echoing of distant voices, rushed in her turn from the cottage.  As she bolted the voice of Garvington screaming with pain and dread was heard as he came to his senses to find himself encircled by fire.  And Mother Cockleshell also shrieked, not so much because of her agony as to stop Miss Greeby from escaping.

“Rye!  Rye! she’s running; catch her; catch her.  Aha—­aha—­aha!” and she sank into the now blazing furnace of the room.

The walls of the cottage were of mud, the partitions and roof of wood and thatch, so the whole place soon burned like a bonfire.  Miss Greeby shot out of the door and strode at a quick pace across the glade.  But as she passed beyond the monoliths, Lambert, in company with a policeman, made a sudden appearance and blocked her way of escape.  With a grim determination to thwart him she kilted up her skirts and leaped like a kangaroo towards the undergrowth beneath the leafless trees.  By this time the flames were shooting through the thatched roof in long scarlet streamers and illuminated the spectral wood with awful light.

“Stop! stop!” cried Lambert, racing to cut off the woman’s retreat, closely followed by the constable.

Miss Greeby laughed scornfully, and instead of avoiding them as they crossed her path, she darted straight towards the pair.  In a moment, by a dexterous touch of her shoulders right and left, she knocked them over by taking them unawares, and then sprang down the path which curved towards the gypsies’ encampment.  At its end the motor was waiting, and so vivid was the light that she saw Silver’s black figure bending down as he frantically strove to start the machine.  She travelled at top speed, fearful lest the man should escape without her.

Then came an onrush of Romany, attracted to the glade by the fire.  They guessed from Miss Greeby’s haste that something was seriously wrong and tried to stop her.  But, delivering blows straight from the shoulder, here, there, and everywhere, the woman managed to break through, and finally reached the end of the pathway.  Here was the motor and safety, since she hoped to make a dash for the nearest seaport and get out of the kingdom before the police authorities could act.