Then again, the wedding with Gil, and his hot kisses burning her face. No, it was Sir Mark; and then again the chilly horror of being seized by those arms and pressed nearer, nearer, to that hideous framework of ghastly bones, while the cold grinning teeth rested against her lips, and in place of kisses began to tear and rend her. Now it was her fair young cheek, now her soft bosom; and at every contact it was the burning pain of ice that froze with a touch like heated iron. She strove to struggle, to call for help, but it was in vain. The hideous teeth were now meeting in her forehead, and a pang of agony ran through her brain. "Gil, Gil, help me, help!" she tried to say; and then there was the clash of arms, the firing of guns, the shouts of contending men--cries, oaths, shrieks, wails. What was it? Was she really mad? Had her sufferings robbed her of reason, or was she striving to rush from the room down the broad old staircase when that hideous rush of fire, and that crash of thunder, came to tear her away? Was it madness, a dream, or was it--. Her reeling senses seemed to leave her as she asked herself the final question, when she was stricken down, even as her lips uttered the question. Was it death? Volume 3, Chapter VI. HOW GIL BROUGHT THE BRIDE FROM THE BURNING HOUSE. For a few moments Gil's men and the followers of Sir Mark stood appalled by the effects of the explosion. Fully one-half had been prostrated by the terrible blast that had swept the beautiful old garden, cutting down tree and shrub as level as if with a knife. Some of the men lay groaning where they had been cast, burned, wounded, and disfigured; while those who were uninjured, of whichever side, seemed as if by mutual consent to consider their petty strife at an end in the face of so awful a catastrophe, and, sheathing their swords, stood looking at the ruined house before them, confused and unmanned by the shock. For to a man the explosion had so shaken them that a curious feeling of helplessness had succeeded to the energy they had displayed, and no one moved even to render assistance to the wounded. Suddenly a loud voice shouted-- "Run, my lads, run! There will be another explosion directly. It is a plot to blow up the place." This seemed to break the spell, and there was a rush of feet towards the closed bridge, when the founder's voice arose. "No, no," he cried; "there can be no other explosion. It was my store; I thought it safe; the powder has all--" He stopped speaking, and reeled and nearly fell to the earth, for he had received a blow from a falling beam; but he recovered himself sufficiently to point towards the house in an appealing way that no one understood. "Halt there!" cried Sir Mark, who now rose to his feet, from where he had been thrown, "follow me some of you, quick, before it is too late."