His eyes sought for Simon's figure. To Simon he owed the greatest debt, and to lay Simon low might mean to dishearten the whole clan. But although the attackers were in fair range now, scarcely two hundred yards away, he could not identify him. They drew closer. He raised his gun, waiting for a chance to fire. And at that instant a resistless force hurled him to the floor.
There was the sense of vast catastrophe, a great rocking and shuddering that was lost in billowing waves of sound; and then a frantic effort to recall his wandering faculties. A blinding light cut the darkness in twain; it smote his eyeballs as if with a physical blow; and summoning all his powers of will he sprang to his feet.
There was only darkness at first; and he did not understand. But it was of scarcely less duration than the flash of lightning. A red flame suddenly leaped into the air, roared and grew and spread as if scattered by the wind itself. And Bruce's breath caught in a sob of wonder.
The Sentinel Pine, that ancient friend and counselor that stood not over one hundred feet from the house, had been struck by a lightning bolt, its trunk had been cleft open as if by a giant's ax, and the flame was already springing through its balsam-laden branches.
XXIX
Bruce stood as if entranced, gazing with awed face at the flaming tree. There was little danger of the house itself catching fire. The wind blew the flame in the opposite direction; besides, the rains were beating on the roof. The fire in the great tree itself, however, was too well started to be extinguished at once by any kind of rainfall; but it did burn with less fierceness.
Dimly he felt the girl's hand grasping at his arm. Her fingers pressed until he felt pain. His eyes lowered to hers. The sight of that passion-drawn face—recalling in an instant the scene beside the camp fire his first night at Trail's End—called him to himself. "Shoot, you fool!" she stormed at him. "The tree's lighted up the whole countryside, and you can't miss. Shoot them before they run away."
He glanced quickly out. The clan that had drawn within sixty yards of the house at the time the lightning struck had been thrown into confusion. Their horses had been knocked down by the force of the bolt and were fleeing, riderless, away. The men followed them, shouting, plainly revealed in the light from the burning tree. The great torch beside the house had completely turned the tables. And Linda spoke true; they offered the best of targets.
Again the girl's eyes were lurid slits between the lids. Her lips were drawn, and her breathing was strange. He looked at her calmly.