This he said to me hurriedly, and literally shouldered me aside as he spoke, that he might look in the face of the woman whom we had saved. “This is Mrs. Stockbridge, if I’m not mistaken,” the old man said, taking the yet terrified woman by the arm. “What were you doing here, mistress, that you failed to join the others in their flight?” “It is Master Bartlett!” she cried in a frenzy of joy, as she seized the old man’s hand. “Thank God you were come in time to save my little ones!” “But what have you been doing here so long?” the old man asked, sharply. “When the others fled I was left behind because of trying to save some little things for the children, and on coming out of the house found myself alone in the settlement.” “And then?” Master Bartlett cried. “And then why did you not go?” “Because I dared not!” she wailed. “It seemed as if we were entirely surrounded by the savages, and, not being able to carry all three of the children, I knew it was impossible they could keep pace with me in the rapid flight.” “But when the savages burned this settlement?” Stephen Morley asked, and of a verity it did seem a miracle that this woman should have been alive, amid the ruins of her house, in which hardly four of the timbers were unconsumed. “On finding ourselves alone, deserted, as it were, I went into the cellar with the children, and there, in the casks which had been sunken that we might make saltpetre, I took refuge, not knowing when the building was fired.” “And you lived while your home burned above your heads?” Stephen Morley demanded, but it was a useless question since there stood the woman before him. “Yes, by the goodness of God. Because we had been working so lately with the lye, and in order to get the water from the outside had brought it in a stream across what remained of the floor, such timbers as I could pile above us were sodden; they protected us even against the heat of the burning house.” “And have you been there ever since?” I asked in astonishment, saying to myself that it was little more surprising she and her children had lived in that narrow hiding-place so long than that the poor protection had saved them from the fire. “I gathered up food when we made ready for the flight, and therefore had plenty with which to feed the babies, while one of the casks was filled with clear water, therefore, save for being in such narrow quarters, we suffered no harm.” “And how was it the savages discovered you at this time?” some one asked, and then we learned that it was through us the poor woman had ventured out at the very moment when danger lurked close at hand.