Ethel turned a flashing glance on the window, then caught up a thick wash pitcher of heavy iron-stone ware. She poured the water out, and rushed at the window, dealing blow after blow on the panes. Joy! the thin glass and slight framework gave way before her furious onslaught. Then she attacked the shutters with the same signal success. They tumbled from their fastenings down to the ground two stories below. The sash was all gone, too, and the fresh outer air rushed into their faces--fresh, but full of the fog and damp of early twilight. "Quick! now the bedclothes! We will sit at the window while we tear them in strips, and if we see any one passing we will scream to them for help," cried Ethel bravely, though her lovely hands were torn and bleeding from fragments of flying glass. They set to work, but Precious was so weak from her long fast that she could not help much. The little hands were strengthless and nerveless. "She must have heard you breaking in the window, and she will come up here presently and kill us," she shuddered, with terrified eyes. "Don't be a coward, Precious. I think the old wretch has very likely run off to tell her son what has happened, and we must get away before they come back, for, of course, he will be very angry, and, as you suggested, he may kill us," answered Ethel, working away in a perfect frenzy of fear and excitement. But Precious was very weak and nervous; she could not bear the strain of this horrible dread, following on the hope of a few minutes ago. She dropped back quietly in her chair and fainted. Ethel would not relax her frantic labor to resuscitate her, but Kay fell to licking the white face with such a rough, energetic tongue that presently Precious sighed and revived, pushing him down with feeble hands. "Down, sir! down! You must not be so impudent," she sighed faintly. "Come, Precious, our rope is done. Can you help me to fasten it to the leg of the bed? Then we will throw it from the window. I will slide down first, and you will follow. I will catch you at the bottom if you fall. And Kay can jump out after us. Oh, Heaven, what is that?" She might well exclaim, for at that moment the wall at the opposite side of the room was suddenly divided by a burst of smoke and flame that lighted up the gloom with a lurid glare. They had thought it was the wind, the strange, crackling noises they had faintly heard for some time, but now they understood the full horror of their situation. The old house was in flames--fired doubtless by the fiendish old hag who had thus wreaked her vengeance and fled, leaving them to their fate. It was a moment of the most sublime horror, the most deadly peril. The two girls gazed at each other with horror-stricken faces, and the mastiff lifted up his voice in a prolonged and dismal howl like a banshee.