“Well! ain’t none o’ you a-comin’?” he called out at last, with impatient sarcasm. “Thought you was so sot on takin’ me out an’ havin’ some fun with me!” After a brief pause, another taunt occurred to him. “Why, even the niggers you’re so in love with,” he shouted, “they ain’t such dod-rotted cowards as you be!” A general movement was discernible among the shadowy forms outside. I thought for the instant that it meant a swarming attack upon the veranda. But no! suddenly it had grown much lighter, and the mob was moving away toward the rear of the house. The men were shouting things to one another, but the wind for the moment was at such a turbulent pitch that all their words were drowned. The reddened light waxed brighter still--and now there was nobody to be seen at all from the window. “Hurry here! Mr. Beech! _We’re all afire!”_ cried a frightened voice in the room behind me. It may be guessed how I turned. The kitchen door was open, and the figure of a woman stood on the threshold, indefinitely black against a strange yellowish-drab half light which framed it. This woman--one knew from the voice that it was Esther Hagadorn--seemed to be wringing her hands. “Hurry! Hurry!” she cried again, and I could see now that the little passage was full of gray luminous smoke, which was drifting past her into the living-room. Even as I looked, it had half obscured her form, and was rolling in, in waves. Abner had heard her, and strode across the room now, gun still in hand, into the thick of the smoke, pushing Esther before him and shutting the kitchen door with a bang as he passed through. I put in a terrified minute or two alone in the dark, amazed and half-benumbed by the confused sounds that at first came from the kitchen, and by the horrible suspense, when a still more sinister silence ensued. Then there rose a loud crackling noise, like the incessant popping of some giant variety of corn. The door burst open again, and M’rye’s tall form seemed literally flung into the room by the sweeping volume of dense smoke which poured in. She pulled the door to behind her--then gave a snarl of excited emotion at seeing me by the dusky reddened radiance which began forcing its way from outside through the holland window shades.