It leaped in great crackling volumes from the roof, and burst through the sides in fiery forks. The whole interior was a seething furnace of lurid flame, and timbers were already beginning to fall in. "Where is Silly Sue?" some one cried, and the question went from mouth to mouth. "She sometimes sleeps in the old house." "Silly Sue, as you call her, is dead," Mr. Thornton announced. "Dead!" the villagers exclaimed, gathering around him--"Silly Sue dead?" "Yes, dead, and lies in the shanty down the road, belonging to Hal Hartly, who has gone to some neighboring town to arrange for her burial!" the speculator said. Then he related what he knew concerning the brutal whipping she had had, at the hands of Gregg senior. A murmur of indignation ran through the crowd as he spoke, and though some of the men did not cry out against the guilty man, the majority were greatly excited. "Do you swear this is true?" one of the villagers cried, angrily. "Ay--swear it a hundred times, if you like. If you have any doubts on the matter, it will take but a few moments to examine the poor child's form, upon which welts and bloody cuts yet remain to be seen." "Then, I for one propose we give Greyville as good as he meted out!" the man cried, whose name was Tompkins. "I always had a private idea that he was a villain, and now I need no further proof to confirm it. All in favor of hauling him out and lynching him, make manifest by saying 'I.'" There was a decisive shout among all but about ten of the men, who maintained a grim silence. "Lynching is a crime, gentlemen," Mr. Thornton said, "in the East, which would render you liable. It can do no harm to give the human monster a taste of the whip, however, and then turn him over to the rigor of the law." "Perhaps you are right," Tompkins agreed. "Come along, boys! We'll teach the wretch that he must be civilized, if he will live in a civilized country!" And the sturdy villager led off, the whole crowd following in his rear with indignant faces. There was indeed a dark look-out for Captain Gregg. From his library window in the village mansion he was watching the fire, and saw the crowd march in a funeral-like procession down from the bluff along the beach toward the village. The countess saw, too, and compressed her lips tightly. "Ze crisis is coming!" she hissed, sharply--so sharply that he started violently. "Ze crowd has heard of ze girl's death, and are coming for you." He turned deathly pale; they would show him no mercy, as he had shown none to Susie, he well knew. "We must escape from here, somehow!" he cried. "To submit to arrest means death--for you as well as myself." "How so?" "Did you not witness the whipping without attempting to interfere?" he sneered. "They'd string you up as quick as I--especially when investigation came to prove you to be Madame Lisset, the notorious French smuggler."