isions in this frenzy of religious excitement, as
so many of her race do under the nervous strain of religious feeling.
She fell into a trance.

It was most real to her. Who that has ever heard a negro give in his
religious experience but recognizes it? She was carried on the wings
of the morning down to the gates of hell. The Devil himself met her,
tempting her always, conducting her through the region of darkness
and showing her the lakes of fire and threatening her with all his
punishment if she did not cease to believe. She overcame him only by
constant prayer. She fled from him, he followed her, but could not
approach her while she prayed.... She was rescued by an angel--an
angel from heaven ... an angel with a flaming sword. Through all the
glories of heaven this angel conducted her, praised her, and bidding
her farewell at the gate, told her to go back to earth and take this:
_It was a torch of fire!_

"_Burn! burn!_" said the angel--"_for I shall make the governors of
Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire on
a sheaf. And they shall devour all the people around about, on the right
hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own
place, even in Jerusalem._"

She came out of the trance in a glory of religious fervor: "Jerusalem
shall be inhabited ag'in!--the Angel has told me--told me--Burn--burn,"
she cried. "Oh Lord--you have spoken and Zion has ears to hear--Amen."

Quickly she gathered up the loose cotton and placed it at the door,
piling it up to the very bolt. She struck a match, swaying and rocking
and chanting: "Yea, Lord, thy servant hath heard--thy servant hath
heard!"

The flames leaped up quickly enveloping the door. The room began to fill
with smoke, but she retreated to a far corner and fell on her knees in
prayer. The panels of the door caught first and the flames spreading
upward soon heated the lock around which the wood blazed and crackled.
It burned through. She sprang up, rushed through the blinding smoke,
struck the door as it blazed, in a broken mass, and rushed out. Down the
long main room she ran to a low window, burst it, and stepped out on the
ground:

"Jerusalem shall be inhabited again," she shouted as she ran
breathless toward home.

CHAPTER XXI

THE GREAT FIRE

Edward Conway sat on the little porch till the stars came out,
wondering why the old nurse did not return. Sober as he was and knew
he would ever be, it se