He threw himself upon the fire, dragging down the hangings, beating on the cushions, but the corner was ablaze.  Overhead the flames seized cracklingly on the dry wood and darted little red tongues over the dry surface and a scarlet snake ran out over the carved ceiling.

In utter wildness Arlee had carried the last candle to the open hamper and the garments there caught instant fire.  She was oblivious of the sparks falling about her, oblivious of the increasing peril.  When Kerissen ran to the door, tearing open the bolts, furiously cursing her, she gave him back the ghost of his earlier mocking laughter and threatened him with a blazing cloth as he turned to drag her from the room.

But the fire reached her fingers and she flung the cloth at him, to have him trample it under foot as he sprang toward her again.

“Would you be burned—­be marred?” he shouted at her.  “You are mad, you——­”

Behind him the door opened.  Behind him a tall figure appeared through the thickening smoke.  She saw a face she knew; a voice she knew cried out her name: 

“Arlee!”

“Oh, here!” she cried and flung herself toward him.

“Not unless you want another?” said Billy B. Hill to the Captain, turning his gun suggestively.

One tense instant the three faced each other in that flaming room, then with a sound of impotent fury, Kerissen turned and darted out the door.  But as Billy turned to follow, his hand on Arlee’s, there was a sound of sliding bolts.

“Burn, burn, then!  Burn together!” called a hoarse voice through the wood.

Hill flung himself against the door; it was unyielding.  On the other side the taunts continued.  He ran to the window, catching up the little table as he ran, and rained a fury of blows with the table against the close-carved screen.  The wood splintered and broke; he wrenched a side away, and dropping his gun in his pocket he crashed through the hole and hung on the outside by his hands.

“Climb out on my shoulders,” he commanded, and Arlee climbed—­how, she never knew.  For one instant she had an impression of hanging out over an abyss with fire crackling in her face; the next instant the soles of her feet were smarting and her eyes still seemed to see stars.

There was a run, stumbling, with Billy’s hand sustaining her, and then she was on a camel, clutching the saddle as the beast rose swiftly in response to urgent whacks, and beside her Billy was on another.  Some one on foot goaded the beasts into a startled run, and behind them yells and screeches were growing louder and louder.

Over her lurching shoulder she had one last glimpse of a burning building and saw flames pouring from the roof, and the room where she had been an open furnace, and then she turned her face toward the dark ahead.

“Hang tight,” Billy was calling to her, and she saw him lean over and lash both camels into furious speed.  “Some one is riding after,” and then he turned and shot his gun warningly into the air.