"It was," said I. I fell back against a near tree, sick at heart and soul. The home which we had toiled so hard to make was gone. Our house was in ashes. The place was desolate.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE FIND A NEW ABODE, AND ZALEE DEPARTS TO SEEK SUCCOUR.
The place was indeed desolate! I could not believe the evidence of my eyes. The uprights of our pleasant home were still charred and smoking; the palm board floor was red and glowing, and in some places it had fallen through. There was no sign of any of the utensils, no sign of the hammocks or the articles that we had fashioned to make life supportable in this tropic desert. A strange combination of words, but home is where the heart is. Where my heart was at that moment I did not know, but I knew that the place where it was not, was a desert to me.
Imagine if you can the feelings to which I became at once a prey! My imagination ran riot. I thought of Cynthia, fallen, perhaps, into hostile hands, carried away by some terrible barbarians, forced because of her beauty to become a priestess; put to death if she refused. I did not forget the little dagger that I had given her, and I hoped that she would not forget it if the time should come. If the time should come! I turned sick at the thought. I must have shown my feelings in my face.
"Oh, it may not be so bad," said the Smith. "While there's life there's hope, you know."
"Do you call that life?" I answered; pointing to the smoking ruins.
I threw myself upon the ground. I seemed to have lost my senses. I had no thought for my own safety. The same hostile hand which burned the house might have made us prisoners again, but that thought never came to me until the Smith suggested it. Even then I cared little. If Cynthia was lost to me, it mattered not what became of me.