Gripping the rough notches with his muscular fingers, and using those lower down for a foothold, as best he could, Nick hurriedly began the difficult ascent.
By the light from a fragment of burning paper, Cervera perceived his design, and greeted it with a scream of derision.
"I'll soon stop that, my fine fellow," she shouted, with vicious asperity. "Look out for yourself!"
White speaking, she touched a match to one of her dresses, which hung from a near peg on the closet wall, and dropped it blazing down the well.
Nick saw it coming, and was forced to drop back to the cellar floor.
"You vicious demon!" he cried, angrily. "Let up! You'll have the house on fire!"
"That's just what I intend doing—and you with it!" screamed Cervera, with a laugh. "I'll not leave you alive to get the best of me at some later day."
Then she set fire to a silk skirt, and dropped it after the other.
Nick had not yet been able to extinguish the first, and the situation was momentarily becoming more desperate. A cloud of smoke was filling the well, with no draft to carry it away, and the heat was already very oppressive.
Crouching on the curb of the lighted passage three floors above him, Cervera was laughing wildly, with her handsome face reflecting the bitter hatred by which she was inspired, as she hurriedly set fire to a third garment and dropped it down the well.