if it were, 'twas
a poor clue to the brain behind it. I fell to wondering about Grey
still travelling in the woods. Was there any hope for him? Was there
hope, indeed, for any one of us penned in a wooden palisade fifty miles
from aid, a handful against an army?

Presently in the lowering silence came the scream of a hawk.

An uncommon sound, half croak, half cry, which only hill dwellers know,
but 'tis an eery noise in the wilderness. It came again, less near, and
a third time from a great distance. I thought it queer, for a hawk does
not scream twice in the same hour. I looked at Shalah, who stood by the
gate, every sinew in his body taut with expectation. He caught my eye.

"That hawk never flew on wings," he said.

Then an owl hooted, and from near at hand came the cough of a deer. The
thicket was alive with life, which mimicked the wild things of the
woods.

Then came a sound which drowned all others. From the inky sky descended
a jagged line of light, and in the same second the crash of the thunder
broke. Never have I seen such a storm. Down in the Tidewater we had
thunderstorms in plenty during the summer-time, but they growled and
passed and scarce ruffled the even blue of the sky. But here it looked
as if we had found the home of the lightnings, where all the
thunderbolts were forged. It blazed around us like a steady fire. By a
miracle the palisade was not struck, but I heard a rending and
splintering in the forest where tall trees had met their doom. The
noise deafened me, and confused my senses. Out of the loophole I could
see the glade that sloped down to the Gap, and it was as bright as if
it had been high noonday. The clumps of fern and grass stood out yellow
and staring against the inky background of the trees. I remember I
noted a rabbit run confusedly into the open, and then at a fresh flare
of lightning scamper back.

Something was crouching and shivering at my side. I found it was
Elspeth, whose courage was no match for the terrors of the heavens. She
snuggled against me for companionship, and hid her face in the sleeve
of my coat.

Suddenly came a cry from Shalah on my left. He pointed his hand to the
glade, and in it I saw a man running. A new burst of light sprang up,
for some dry tindery creepers had caught fire, and were blazing to
heaven. It lit a stumbling figure which I saw was Grey, and behind him
was a lithe Indian running on his trail.

"Open the gate," I cried, and I got my mus