The destruction was almost beyond comprehension, for there were thousands of tons of powder stored in the magazine. Huge masses of masonry were hurled high into the air. Ponderous guns were tossed away as if they had been toys caught by a strong wind. The massive walls rocked, tottered, and fell, burying hundreds of natives, while hundreds more were blown through the air like wisps of straw. Death was scattered through the ranks of the mutineers until they fell back appalled. It was such a daring deed, so unexpected, so fearful in its effects, so incalculably destructive, that it struck a nameless terror to their recreant hearts; and, with the bodies of their comrades falling in showers around them, they stood spellbound. Four of the little band of defenders escaped alive. One of these four was a man named James Martin--a determined, fearless fellow, who, during the five long hours of the defence, had worked like one endowed with superhuman strength. When he saw Scully apply the torch to the train, he sprang on to one of the bastions, and, dropping a distance of nearly twenty feet, lay still until the awful blast of fire had passed over. Then he crept along until he reached a heap of masonry that had been blown down, and had fallen in such a way as to leave a large hollow, a kind of cavern. Into this Martin crept, and worn out with fatigue and excitement, he fell asleep. CHAPTER VII. HAIDEE AND HER WRONGS. It is necessary here to go back to the moment when, to the astonished gaze of Harper, the beautiful Haidee appeared in the cell in which the lieutenant had been incarcerated. It seemed to him as if his senses were playing him false, and instead of a living, breathing woman, he was looking at a vision--at an angel of goodness--who had come to give him hope. But suddenly his thoughts changed, as he beheld, by the light of her lamp, that in her girdle she carried a long gleaming dagger, and her white fingers firmly grasped the handle. Assassination, then, was her object? So he thought, but dismissed the idea as soon as formed; for the face was too beautiful, too soft, too womanly for a nature that could do murder. She stood for some moments in the doorway, in an attitude of listening, as if she feared that she had been followed; and Harper noticed that a small flight of stone steps led upward until they were lost in darkness. Presently she stepped into the cell, and gently closed the door. Then, holding the light above her head, she surveyed the young officer. “I will not ask if you come here as a friend,” said Harper; “your movements proclaim that, but I may, at least, ask why you come, and why I, a stranger, should have aroused an interest in you?”