For perhaps half a minute Curly lay absolutely still. Then the horror of what that human fiend meant to do struck him with full force, turning him cold and then hot as fire. He rolled over on his face, and, bracing both feet against the foundation of the saw, strained the splendid muscles of back and arm and shoulder as he had never strained them before. The ropes cracked a little, but held fast, biting deep into his flesh. He paid no heed to the pain. Again he strove with all his might to break those bonds. Again he failed. Joyce had done his work well. He was still straining, twisting, and flinging himself about till every inch of his body seemed sore to the touch, when of a sudden the faint, light tang of something new in the air made him stop like a person paralyzed. Smoke! For a second he did not dare to breathe. Slowly, fearfully, he drew in the air. Then a smothered, inarticulate sound, half scream, half groan, echoed through the dark mill. It was smoke! The coward had kept his word and fired the building. No one would ever know. The flames were coming fast--fast. Presently they would reach him---- In a panic of horror he again cast himself here and there over the board floor, the sawdust sometimes muffling the thudding sound of his body. There was not one chance in a thousand that one would hear him. He stopped and listened, but detected no sound. A fresh puff of smoke made him gag. It was coming faster and faster, thicker and thicker. Gasping for breath, he flung himself about again in a mad paroxysm of fear. Above the thudding noise of his own making he could hear the horrible, ominous crackling of flames. Crevices here and there began to be outlined in dull, glowing, changing red. He thought he heard the clanging of the primitive alarm, but he could not be sure. Hither and thither he rolled, keeping up the motion without conscious volition, scraping, scratching, bumping against obstacles, but always blindly to get farther away from the consuming element beyond the partition. At one time the lapping, gurgling sound of water struck on his dazed senses with the shock of the incredible. Then he realized that it came from beneath him, and knew that he must be in the portion of the mill built out over the river. A few inches of flooring was all that separated him from the cool, soothing touch of that water. The bitter irony of it ate into his soul like caustic, and brought a sudden rush of scalding tears to the stinging, smoke-blinded eyes. The glow brightened, grew more vivid. A single tongue of flame slid through a crack, and began licking up the wall. The sight seemed to arouse Curly to fresh exertions. He flung himself furiously to one side, and by a strange chance he struck glancingly against the teeth of the circular saw, which cut his face cruelly and tore away the gag.