“It is fire!” replied Darke. “I saw one of the devils fire the cabin. It must be all in a light blaze before this time!”
“Then it was fired before you came in?”
“Yes. It was set at the rear, and that is the reason you have not seen or heard it till now. The flames were climbing the roof as I crossed the clearing. But we must not stay here. One of us must go to the settlement and the other to the cavern to-night. Do you think you can walk well enough to undertake to get to the settlement? Your ankles must be—”
“Yes,” and the look on his face confirmed what he said, “I could do any thing—brave any thing for her! There is nothing that I would not attempt to save her from pain—nothing that I would not dare, to make her happy! Vinnie is more to me than my life, Mr. Darke! To-day, before those red devils came to tear her away from me, she promised to become my wife.”
“I believe you, boy!” exclaimed Darke. “I could not intrust her to the protecting love of a better man. If we can only save her she shall be yours!”
“Thank you,” said the young man, earnestly. “We must save her from that demon’s power! The thought that she is in his hands is maddening! But we must act. I will go to the settlement and obtain horses and enlist Pete Wimple in our cause, while you proceed to the cave to secure the services of the big hunter. I’m sure he will not refuse us his aid.”
“Right,” assented Darke. “Where shall be our place of rendezvous?”
“Near the big pine tree at the edge of the forest. We must be mounted and on our way before daylight.”
The fire had caught in the great oak trees that had been left close up by the walls of the woodman’s home as a partial protection against wind and storm, and the flames, shooting heavenward, cast a lurid glow over the dark forest for quite a distance in every direction.
The two men hastened away, the burning cabin lighting their way through the wood, Death, the blood-hound keeping close to Darke and manifesting his sense of the calamity that had overtaken them by giving utterance ever and anon to low, sorrowful whines.