But, as he said so, another yell sounded upon their ears.
"The door is tied here," said the stranger, tearing at a well-knotted cord with impatient violence—but it would not give way. "Help me then," he said to Clair; and, leaning his shoulder against the door, the hinge snapped, though the cord remained firm.
The apartment, on which they thus entered, was bare of anything, save one living object. Both started, as they beheld the wretched Rogers, tied round the waist, by a thick cord, to a strong piece of wood which ran up the side to the ceiling. His eyes were glaring and distended—his face filled with death-like anguish. Blood was gushing from his mouth and nostrils, for he had ruptured a blood vessel in his attempts to free his hands and mouth from the bandages, which appeared to have been tied over them.
"Wretched man, repent before it is too late," said the stranger, as he hastened to undo the cords which bound him.
It was not an easy matter, and every moment seemed an age of peril to the three.
Rogers opened his eyes, wide with horror, upon the stranger, for a moment, and then turned aside his head and fainted. The room was heated to suffocation, and fast filling with smoke. Clair felt sick with horror; but the stranger, whose thought seemed action, raised Rogers in his arms. With his head laid carefully on his shoulder, and his own hands and garments dripping in his blood, he bore him out, assisted by Clair. Scarcely had they cleared the threshold, when the roof fell in, and the cottage was in ruins.
A shout, from those who had feared to follow, welcomed them as they appeared; and the stranger staggered through the ruins spread around him, to the group who anxiously waited them. He singled out Mr. Ware, and laid his fainting burden at his feet, then, bending his knee in Eastern fashion before him, he said—
"Father, judge who hath done this, for he is a brother, though a sinful one."
A murmur of horror passed through the crowd; and Mr. Ware, kneeling by the side of the hated Rogers, tried to reanimate him.
"He is not dead, sir," said he, in a low voice; "he will live, I trust, if we can once revive him."