“Where is he?” I asked.
“He has gone to bring Cyrus, and it is time he had returned.”
“How did I escape from that dreadful fire?”
“Aubrey rescued you. After his fit of passion had passed he dashed aside the burning furniture and carried you back upstairs.”
A few minutes later I heard the sound of footsteps, and looking up saw Aubrey DeVere and Cyrus Potts standing by my bedside.
“Cyrus,” I cried.
“How de do, Penelope,” said Cyrus.
Before I could reply there was a loud and fiendish yell outside. The front door was broken down and a dozen masked men dashed into the room.
“We hear there is a d—— Yankee in here,” they cried. “Lynch him!”
Aubrey DeVere seized a table by the leg and killed every man of the lynching party.