h
miserably.

Outside, the crowd inched nearer. Renewed silence had succeeded
Glenning's successful entrance into the stall of The Prince, and under
this strange stillness they came closer, in a body, breathing awesomely
and straining their eyes to see. But the waving curtain of flame baffled
their peering gaze. Only once they saw a dark, writhing bulk beyond the
gleaming barrier, then this was hidden. Major Dudley and Julia had not
changed their positions. But upon his face now shone the light of hope,
while the girl's was stony with despair and dread. The brief moments
were as leaden-footed hours, and time changed into eternity for the
anxious hearted watchers. No sound now but the crackling of wood and the
subtle swish of flames, and far off in the shadows at the rear of the
lot a subdued coughing, where Devil Marston crouched and nursed his
scorched lungs, and cursed the unknown man who had gone where he could
not go. The stable was large, and the conflagration was now at its
height, and it presented a gorgeous, if harrowing, spectacle. Red and
yellow and dun streamers shot skyward, shaking out their serpentine
lengths, wrapping and twining about each other, dying if a breath of
wind touched them, only to be succeeded by others, fiercer and longer
and more vivid. Crawling, hissing, crimson serpents of heat disported
over the trembling roof of the building, and myriad of sparks would rise
on columns of rose-tinted smoke when a bit of timber dropped. And deep
in the very heart of all this hell, burned, blinded, suffocated and
weak, a brave soul wrestled with imminent and torturing death, because a
woman had looked twice into his eyes and asked for help, if he were a
man!

There came a change. Less than a minute had elapsed since Glenning had
committed himself to almost certain death. Then the watchers saw a
movement at the flame-hung door. An indistinguishable something seemed
trying to force its way out. At this moment, as though fortune truly
favored the brave, the veering wind caught the red curtain and drew it
aside as gently as though done by a lady's hand. Out from the inferno
within sprang a man, his clothing covered with little red tongues, his
face blackened and his hair singed and disordered. After him, with the
man's coat bound over his head, the sleeves tied under his throat,
completely blindfolding him, came The Prince. Glenning swung on to his
halter, and as the falling sparks nipped the horse afresh h