"See that you give the alarm in season," returned the muffled figure, as he took the basket from the woman's hand, and passed softly down the steps of the piazza.
Silently the destroying fires were lighted. But the midnight incendiary would have proceeded less deliberately with his work of destruction, had he marked the tall, lank figure in a long, dark overcoat, and slouching-brimmed hat, which slowly dogged closely his every footstep. Suddenly a bright flash leaped up from the fragments the wicked man sought to enkindle, and revealed his garb and features. A mingled expression of hatred and revenge glared from the sunken eyes of his follower, who stood in the shadow of a linden near by, as the pale, handsome features and light, curling locks of the incendiary met his gaze.
"Villain!" exclaimed he, springing forward, as the man turned with a hurried step from his work of destruction; "would you burn innocent people in their beds?"
With one fell blow the man dashed the lank form to the earth, and fled down the avenue of cedars, which led to the river, never heeding the startled looks of a thin woman, and tall, graceful youth, against whose sides he brushed in his guilty flight.
"Who could that flying figure have been?" asked the lad of the woman, when the man had rushed past.
"I don't know, indeed, Willie," answered she, "unless it was your friend, the hermit, gone wild. You say he has been more gloomy than usual for several days."
"O, no!" returned the youth; "it was not the hermit. I distinguished this man's features very plainly as he passed, and it was no one I ever saw before. He had no covering on his head, and his hair was light and curly. His face seemed glowing with rage and anger."
"It must have been some lunatic escaped from the asylum," said the woman.
"Well, I think you are right, mother," answered the boy. "I hope he has not harmed the poor hermit, whom I left sitting on a stone among the cedars, near Major Howard's mansion. He came thus far with me to-night, as it was so late, and the way long and gloomy."
"Ah! he was very kind," remarked the woman. "I began to fear you were not coming for me, Willie, and thought I should have to remain at Mr. Pimble's all night, or go home alone. Is the hermit's nephew still with him?"