Uel spoke in surprise.
"Yes, son of Jahdai, she is a Christian. Nevertheless send Lael to her. Again I leave you where I rest myself—with God—our God."
Thereupon he went out finally, and between gusts of wind regained his own house. He stopped on entering, and barred the door behind him; then he groped his way to the kitchen, and taking a lamp from its place, raked together the embers smothering in a brazier habitually kept for retention of fire, and lighted the lamp. He next broke up some stools and small tables, and with the pieces made a pile under the grand stairway to the second floor, muttering as he worked: "The proud are risen against me; and now the wind cometh, and punishment."
Once more he walked through the rooms, and ascended to the roof. There, just as he cleared the door, as if it were saluting him, and determined to give him a trial of its force, a blast leaped upon him, like an embodiment out of the cloud in full possession of both world and sky, and started his gown astream, and twisting his hair and beard into lashes whipped his eyes and ears with them, and howled, and snatched his breath nearly out of his mouth. Wind it was, and darkness somewhat like that Egypt knew what time the deliverer, with God behind him, was trying strength with the King's sorcerers—wind and darkness, but not a drop of rain. He grasped the door-post, and listened to the crashing of heavy things on the neighboring roofs, and the rattle of light things for the finding of which loose here and there the gust of a storm may be trusted where eyes are useless. And noticing that obstructions served merely to break the flying forces into eddies, he laughed and shouted by turns so the inmates of the houses near might have heard had they been out as he was instead of cowering in their beds: "The proud are risen against me, and the assembly of violent men have sought after my soul; and now—ha, ha, ha!—the wind cometh and the punishment!"
Availing himself of a respite in the blowing, he ran across the roof and looked over into the street, and seeing nothing, neither light nor living thing, he repeated the refrain with a slight variation: "And the wind—ha, ha!—the wind is come, and the punishment!"—then he fled back, and down from the roof.
And now the purpose in reserve must have revelation.
The grand staircase sprang from the floor open beneath like a bridge. Passing under it, he set the lamp against the heap of kindling there, and the smell of scorching wood spread abroad, followed by smoke and the crackle and snap of wood beginning to burn.
It was not long until the flames, gathering life and strength, were beyond him to stay or extinguish them, had he been taken with sudden repentance. From step to step they leaped, the room meantime filling fast with suffocating gases. When he knew they were beyond the efforts of any and all whom they might attract, and must burst into conflagration the instant they reached the lightest of the gusts playing havoc outside, he went down on his hands and knees, for else it had been difficult for him to breathe, and crawled to the door. Drawing himself up there, he undid the bar, and edged through into the street; nor was there a soul to see the puff of smoke and murky gleam which passed out with him.
His spirit was too drunken with glee to trouble itself with precautions now; yet he stopped long enough to repeat the refrain, with a hideous spasm of laughter: "And now—ha, ha!—the wind is come, and the fire, and the punishment." Then he wrapped his gown closer about his form bending to meet the gale, and went leisurely down the street, intending to make St. Peter's gate.
Where the intersections left openings, the Jew, now a fugitive rather than a wanderer—a fugitive nevertheless who knew perfectly where he was going, and that welcome awaited him there—halted to scan the cloudy floor of the sky above the site of the house he had just abandoned. A redness flickering and unsteady over in that quarter was the first assurance he had of the growth of the flame of small beginning under the grand staircase.