While her faith was wrestling thus with her fear, the attention of Emmie was attracted by a small object near her, almost covered with snow, which, strangely enough on that winter day, looked something like a rosebud. Its soft crimson hue contrasted with the whiteness of the snow under which it was lying half buried. There was something curiously familiar to Emmie in the appearance of that flower, which did not seem like a work of nature. The small thing, whatever it might be, was but two steps from the spot where Emmie stood leaning against the paling. Emmie turned towards the place where lay the object, and, though she could scarcely have given a reason for so doing, she stooped and raised it. With emotions which no pen can describe, the trembling girl drew out from the snow a man’s slipper—a slipper which her own fingers had worked for her brother! Emmie sank on her knees with a faint cry of anguish. How had that slipper come there, and when? and, oh! where, where was he who had worn it? Did that deserted house conceal some fearful—
The chain of thought was broken by an explosive crash of heaven’s artillery in the cloud above, and, almost simultaneously with the peal, a fire-ball struck the house, by the garden-gate of which Emmie was crouching, still on her knees. The noise was so tremendous that the maiden for a brief space lost sense of hearing and power of thinking; she was deafened and bewildered, and remained motionless and breathless, with the slipper clenched in her grasp. But the thunder-clap was soon over, and miserable consciousness of her position returned to poor Emmie. The sight of that slipper roused her to a more sickening fear than could be caused by lightning or thunder.
Emmie started to her feet, and again turned her wild gaze on the lonely house. It had been fast closed against her entrance, but (attracted, perhaps, by the metal on the door) Heaven’s bolt had torn its way through; it had smashed through woodwork and brickwork, and made a ghastly breach, charred and blackened, as if a bomb had exploded there to make an opening for destroyers! There was nothing now but her own terror to hinder the maiden from exploring the lightning-stricken dwelling.
“O Father—mercy—help!” burst in almost unconscious prayer from Emmie’s quivering lips, as she lifted the latch of the gate. With rapid steps she crossed the little garden by the snow-covered path, and over the charred and splintered wreck of a door made her way into the house which she had so much dreaded to enter. To Emmie it seemed as if she were borne onwards by some invisible power, and were scarcely a voluntary agent; but this sensation was the effect of excited fancy.
Emmie was now in the narrow passage of Jael’s house; to her right was an open door, beyond which lay a room, dark indeed, for the shutters of its window were closed, yet not utterly so, for daylight forced its way in through chinks, and there was a faint reflected light from the wall of the passage. Into that room Emmie now turned, groping her way forwards with hands extended. Her object was to reach the window and throw open the shutters, and so gain fuller light by which to pursue her dreadful search for—perhaps a brother’s corpse! But ere Emmie could feel her way to the window, her bare and icy-cold hand came in contact with something soft and damp—something resembling a human face! Emmie could not stifle a cry of horror. Her first emotion was that of terror, the next that of almost ecstatic hope, as the maiden’s straining eyes traced through the deep gloom the outline of a form, not standing upright, but apparently leaning against or fastened to some heavy piece of furniture. This form, of which she had accidentally touched the face, was assuredly not dead, for the flesh had some slight warmth, and the head had slightly moved when her hand came in contact with it. Emmie sprang to the window, raised the bar, and flung the shutters wide open. What a sight did daylight reveal! On his knees, with his back to a table to which he was bound, while his mouth was gagged with his own neckcloth, Emmie, as she turned from the window, beheld her brother—her own lost Bruce!
Almost in the twinkling of an eye the prisoner’s mouth was freed from its bonds. The exclamations “My sister! my preserver!” which burst from the young man’s lips, showed that neither the sense of recognition nor power of utterance was lost. Emmie then attempted to free the arms of Bruce, which were bound with a rope behind him; but to accomplish this work required more time and far greater effort. The knot was not easily unloosed, and the slender delicate fingers of Emmie, though she exerted their utmost strength, could not for several minutes accomplish their difficult task. Whilst Emmie was straining at the tight knot, quickened in her efforts by a faint moan from her suffering brother, she noticed not whether lightning flashed or thunder rolled; she seemed for the time to have lost all personal fear; self-consciousness was swallowed up in anxious care for another.
At length the rope end was dragged through the last cruel loop, and Bruce Trevor was free. Emmie, with thankful delight, threw her arms round the neck of her brother, and, for the first time on that terrible day, burst into a flood of tears. Her brother feebly returned her embrace, and wept like a child. Emmie was surprised, and even alarmed, at the emotion to which Bruce Trevor gave way. Had it been Vibert who had wept—Vibert, ever impulsive, and without any self-control—Emmie would neither have wondered nor feared; but that Bruce, the firm Bruce, who since childhood had never been known to shed a tear—that Bruce should actually sob, showed that even his powers of endurance must have been overstrained at last, and that his strong nerves had been shaken by torture, either physical or mental.
And suffering was written on the young man’s face; not only in the ghastly wound which Harper’s blow had left on his brow, but in the hollow eyes, the haggard cheek, the lips which had lost for a while their expression of calm decision. Bruce had secretly prided himself on his firmness; he had to be taught that no merely human courage can be proof against every trial, as his sister had been taught that human weakness can be raised into heroism by the power of faith and prayer.
But soon the strong will struggled against human infirmity. Mastering his emotion by a convulsive effort, Bruce was the first to speak.
“How came you here? who is with you?” he asked.