h super-human strength hurled him into the corner, where he lay
stupefied, if not senseless.

The faithful dog sprang at his master's assailant, but he kicked it
quickly aside. It was the work of a moment to draw back the heavy bolt
and rush up the creaking stairs.

"Out with you!" he cried ... "Out at once! ... no time to lose ... t'
chimney's fallin' ... Bring Lucy, Martha ... I'll go down an' watch
Roger. 'Urry up, now!"

We needed no second admonition. Barjona hurried down the steps, and
Martha darted to the bed, seized her child and a blanket, and followed
him. I had almost reached the foot of the stairs when I remembered the
medicine on which so much depended, and I ran back to fetch it. As I
did so I thought I heard a warning cry from the street, and fear gave
wings to my feet. But it was too late.

Just as I reached the dressing-table there came a fearful crash, and
through an opening in the roof an avalanche of stones and tiles and
mortar descended with terrific force. Then, to the accompaniment of an
awful roar, a dark and heavy mass hurled itself through the gap, and
the crunch of broken beam and splintered wood told where it had
disappeared into the room below. A pit opened almost at my feet, and
there came up a blinding, suffocating mist of dust, like the breath of
a smouldering volcano.

One whole end of the house fell over into the field, and I felt the
floor slope away beneath me as I made an agonised clutch at the
framework of the bed. Loosened stones fell upon and around me in
showers, but I was conscious of no pain. Choked and terrified,
however, and certain that my last hour had come, I lost my senses and
fell upon the littered bed in a swoon.

I came back to semi-consciousness in a land of shadows. I thought I
was in Egypt, lying among the ruins of the great Nile temples about
which I had been reading to the squire only a day or two before.
Overhead the moon was looking down, full orbed, and tattered clouds
were racing along the path of the skies. The jagged piles of masonry
were the giant walls of Philae, and the roar of the wind was the rush
of waters over the great dam. It was not unpleasant to lie there and
dream, and listen to the spirit voices which came indistinctly from the
pillared courts.

Then the figure of a man bent over me and an arm was placed beneath my
neck, and a familiar voice whispered in tones that sounded anguished,
and oh! so distant:

"Grace, my dar