The watchman started guiltily, and leaned over the railing with such sudden show of interest that the tithing-man grew suspicious. His sharp eyes spied a faint wavering line of smoke rising from the corner of the platform. So he guessed the smoke rose from the overturned bowl of a pipe, and that the watchman had been smoking, a comfortable practice which had originated among the settlers of Virginia. Being in a good humour, he was disposed to ignore this indiscretion on the part of the watchman. The latter had now fixed his spy-glass in the direction of the churchyard. “I see a patch o’ orange tiger-lilies far down the hillside,” he announced, “and near by be a little grave grown o’er with sweetbrier. And there, with her head pillowed on the headstone, be Mistress Deliverance Wentworth, sound in sleep.” Thus the little maid was found by the tithing-man, and wakened and marched back to church. As the two neared the entrance the watchman called her softly, “Hey, there, Mistress Deliverance Wentworth, what made ye fall asleep?” “The Devil set a snare for my feet,” she answered mournfully, not inclined to attach too much blame to herself. “Satan kens his own,” said the watchman severely, quickly hiding his pipe behind him. Now, at the moment of the disgraced little maid’s entrance, a great rush of wind swept in and a timber in the rafters was blown down, reaching the floor, however, without injury to any one. Many there were who later testified to having seen Deliverance raise her eyes just before the timber fell. These believed that she had summoned a demon, who, invisibly entering the meeting-house on the wings of the wind, had sought to destroy it. The sky, lately so blue, grew leaden gray. So dark it became, that but few could see to read the psalms. Thunder as yet distant could be heard, and the roaring of the wind in the tree-tops, and ever in the pauses of the storm, the ominous booming of the ocean. The watchman came inside. The tithing-man closed and bolted the great door. The minister prayed fervently for mercy. None present but believed that an assault of the demons upon God’s house was about to be made. The rain began to fall heavily, beating in at places through the rafters. Flashes of lightning would illumine the church, now bringing into vivid relief the row of judges, now the scarlet-coated soldiers, or the golden head of a child and its terror-stricken mother, again playing on and about the pulpit where the impassioned minister, his face ghastly above his black vestments, called unceasingly upon the Lord for succour. The building was shaken to its foundations. Still to an heroic degree the people maintained their self-control. Suddenly there was a more brilliant flash than usual, followed by a loud crash. When this terrific shock had passed, and each person was beginning to realize dimly that he or she had survived it, the minister’s voice was heard singing the fifty-second psalm.