h lay between him and the welcome shade of the fruit garden,
every moment he expected the roar which should greet his discovery; the
whiz of flying assegais, the crash of bullets. But fortune favoured
him, and in a moment he lay crouching in the ditch behind the low sod
wall, just as the flame was applied to the piles of brushwood which had
been heaped against the front of the house.

His first thought had been to escape while they were busy at their
congenial work of destruction. But the house stood upon an open flat,
and now as the flames roared upward the whole of the surroundings were
lit up as in the light of day. Only the insignificant area covered by
the welcome shade of the fruit trees afforded concealment. A rat even,
stealing across that illumined space, would instantly be discovered.
There was no escape that way.

Peering warily through the tufted grasses which had taken root along the
top of the sod wall, Roden's gaze fell upon a scene which was
indescribably barbarous and weird. From every side of the house now the
flames were bursting forth; windows and doors belching out great red
fiery tongues, sometimes with such fury as to drive back helter-skelter
a crowd of the savage incendiaries, and in thick, rolling columns the
smoke-clouds swept upward, veiling the midnight stars. And forming up
in a ring around the burning dwelling the excited barbarians were
executing a frenzied war-dance, their red, ochre-smeared frames
demon-like as they swung half to one side then to the other, stamping
their feet in unison. And above the roar and crackle of the blazing
pile the fierce, throaty rhythm of the war-song rose higher and higher,
louder and louder, its every note quivering with an insatiate lust for
blood. Then, as the frenzy reached its height, leaving their places the
savages would ran to and fro, making downward stabs in imitation of
slaying those who had been driven out by the flames and were striving to
escape. Others again would approach as near as they could, and make
believe to be in wait for those who should climb out through the
windows--receiving them on their assegais with a deep-throated,
bloodthirsty gasp. The pantomime was perfect, and he who crouched there
as an involuntary spectator could not forbear a cold shudder, as he
witnessed thus vividly represented before him the fate from which he had
so narrowly, and by a moment of time, escaped.

But had he escaped it? His present position