In a crevice in the wall, just over the end of the second rafter of the upper three, the wind had lodged a seed one day and from it a sturdy little pine had sprung up. Hunting for food, it had thrust down the hungry fibres of its roots to feed upon the mortar. It had been nodding good cheer to the young man, as the breezes played leap-frog with it, and he hated to hurt it, but he had to. Grasping it, he wrenched it from its lodging-house. Its roots could not bear to bid adieu to being. They clung so closely to the rough ashlar round which they had twined that the stone was twisted out with them and crashed to the tiles below, leaving the second beam free at this end, so that Page Lomax could send it after the first one. The third rafter of the upper three was fat with turpentine. Scratching a match, the young man held it under the oiliest streak, until a feeble blaze stole up. Waxing lustier, it parted with sparkling fingers its blue veil of smoke that it might the better gnaw through the bar on which it was at work. When the beam had nearly burned in two, Page Lomax shoved it upward. It broke. In a twinkling, it had gone outside to join the others. “Now, Zaidee,” he cried, as he cast himself face downward on the great spider’s back, “Throw yourself here beside me. Rest your toes against that same little ledge back of her head. Grip the other as you did before. She’ll bounce over that wall, in the next ten seconds. When she hits the ground and settles down on her hind-legs, jump, jump for your life, and run for the boat with me.”