It seemed to her that she had slept but a minute, but really she had slept for hours, when she was awakened by a loud beating upon the cabin door. She started up broad awake, and stood in an attitude of flight, her head bent toward the door. “I say she’s in here!” she heard a voice crying loudly--a voice which she recognized with a thrill of terror as the voice of Craven Black. “We’ve scoured the mountain on this side, and have not found her. She must have taken refuge in this unused cabin. Miss Wynde! Miss Neva!” Neva was still as death. She scarcely dared to breathe. Again Craven Black beat furiously upon the door. “Break in the door!” he shouted. “Here, one of you sailors, bring that log of wood yonder, and we’ll see who has barred this door on the inside. The log of wood! Quick!” Neva stared around her with wild, frightened eyes. There was no outlet from the cabin save through the door or window, and these were side by side, and both commanded by her enemies. With a terrible despair she crouched again on the hearth, her head still bent toward the door. “We’ll make a battering-ram of the log,” said Craven Black. “So! Now the four of us will break the door in in a second. Guard the door, men, while I go in. Keep out those sheep dogs. They act like wolves. Now!” There was a combined assault upon the door. It trembled and creaked, and one of the iron rests in the wall, unable to resist the pressure brought to bear upon it, gave way, bursting from its socket. The wooden bar dropped to the floor, and the door was burst open so violently and so suddenly that Craven Black came flying into the room like some projectile hurled from a mortar. He gave a yell of triumph at sight of the slender, crouching figure on the hearth. “Here she is, boys,” he cried. “We’ve found her! Poor creature! She is still in the delirium of the fever, as I told you. How wild she looks!” The sailors stood without the door, half-careless, half-pitying. Craven Black had told them that his wife’s step-daughter was ill, and had fled from the Wilderness in the delirium of fever, and they saw nothing in Neva’s appearance to contradict the statement. For the young girl sprang to her feet and retreated from Craven Black with both hands upraised, the palms turned outward, and her wild face full of horror and loathing. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her cheeks and lips were tinted with vivid carmine. Even Craven Black was alarmed at her appearance, and was calmed into instant gentleness. “My poor Neva!” he cried. “I am come to take you home--” “I will not go!” cried the girl, her red-brown eyes flashing. “O God, am I utterly forsaken and abandoned to my enemies?” “You hear her?” exclaimed Black. “Poor thing! she needs her step-mother’s tender care and nursing. We brought her up to the Wilderness, hoping that the change would cure her propensity to these paroxysms. Come, Neva. Your step-mother is very anxious about you, and the whole household is alarmed.”