There was a startling fierceness in the voice of the trooper that reached to the heart, even amid the horrors of the cottage. The leader dropped his plunder and for a moment he stood in nerveless dread; then, rushing to the window, he threw up the sash. At this instant Lawton entered, sabre in hand, into the apartment.
“Die, miscreant!” cried the trooper, cleaving a marauder to the jaw; but the leader sprang into the lawn and escaped his vengeance.
The shrieks of the females restored Lawton to his presence of mind, and the earnest entreaty of the divine induced him to attend to the safety of the family. One more of the gang fell in with the dragoons and met his death, but the remainder had taken the alarm in season.
A loud crash in the upper apartments was succeeded by a bright light that glared through the open door, and made objects as distinct as day. Another dreadful crash shook the building to its centre. It was the falling of the roof, and the flames threw their light abroad so as to make objects visible around the cottage through the windows of the room. Frances, who was with Sarah, flew to one of them and saw the confused group that was collected on the lawn. Among them was her aunt, pointing with distraction to the fiery edifice, and apparently urging the dragoon to enter it. For the first time she comprehended their danger, and, uttering a wild shriek, she flew through the passage without consideration or object.
A dense and suffocating smoke opposed her progress. She paused to breathe, when a man caught her in his arms and bore her, in a state of insensibility, through the falling embers and darkness to the open air. The instant that Frances recovered her recollection she perceived that she owed her life to Lawton, and, throwing herself on her knees, she cried:
“Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! Save my sister, and may the blessing of God await you!”
Her strength failed, and she sank on the grass in insensibility.
By this time the flames had dispersed much of the suffocating vapor, so that the trooper was able to find the door, and in its very entrance he was met by a man supporting the insensible form of Sarah. There was but barely time to reach the lawn again before the fire broke through the windows and wrapped the whole building in a sheet of flame.
“God be praised!” ejaculated[97] the preserver of Sarah; “it would have been a dreadful death to die.”
The trooper turned from gazing at the edifice to the speaker, and, to his astonishment, he beheld the peddler.