eld, and in the end millions and millions of acres. If men
could but remember this, they would hesitate ere, by a seemingly trivial
act, they incurred the awful responsibility of the immeasurable amount
of crime and suffering they may cause.

How much further Tompion and Duff would have ventured I do not know,
when their progress was arrested by a sight which silenced even the
jeering laughter of the pirates. A loud, crashing noise was heard,
which seemed to rend and tear in sunder the very cliffs, from the summit
of which bright flames burst forth suddenly, and exposing the pinnacled
rocks, the shattered ruins, and the groups of figures standing on them,
in front of the fire, to the view of those below. The glare for the
first moment almost blinded the eyes of the English, so long accustomed
to darkness; but they soon saw that the fire proceeded from a tall tower
near the edge of the cliff, and that the flames were bursting forth from
the door, the windows, and the very roof itself, quickly towering up
towards the sky. That some dreadful catastrophe had occurred, there
appeared to be no doubt by the commotion created among the people. They
began to run in all directions; some, it seemed, to procure water to
throw on the flames, others to find ladders to scale the walls, and some
were seen to attempt to gain the interior, but were again speedily
driven forth by the fury of the flames. Their efforts, it was very soon
seen, were of little avail, the flames seemed to gain fresh strength by
some new stimulant, they darted up higher than before in a pyramid of
fire, the tower was seen to rock to and fro, and down it came with a
tremendous crash, burying, it seemed too probable, beneath its burning
ruins many who could not have had time to escape to a distance. The
mistico, while this event was taking place, had, favoured by the wind,
got considerably ahead of the boats, and was by this time close in with
the harbour's mouth.

"Duff, ahoy," cried Tompion. "That looks like a warning to us, and I
think we ought to take it, and be off before the villains recover from
their confusion. Pull up your starboard oars. We must give it up."

"I am afraid so," said Duff, imitating his senior's example, and
defeated in their object, the two boats once more steered in the
direction where it was expected the _Ione_ would be found. They were
allowed to escape without further molestation, for the greater number of
the pirates wer