SMOKING OUT THE ENEMY. 281 



The darkness wrapped her as a mantle, not protecting her 

 but pinioning her arms in helplessness. It seemed the greater 

 from the contrast with the beacon light that usually shone 

 from the lantern brightening even the distant sea. She struck 

 a match and lit the great lamp of the lantern, and as its flash 

 broke out on the night her heart grew lighter at its accustomed 

 cheerfulness. She could once more see the white walls of 

 her house, and the ranks of marching breakers that knelt 

 along the beach, discharging their regular volleys of noise 

 and foam. She laid down on the floor so as to be secure 

 from any shot from without, and watched the narrow winding 

 steps of the tower. 



Where was her uncle ? There had been no voice or sound of 

 him since they had parted. There was but one opinion as to his 

 fate ; she could not think of it, and sternly shut it back lest she 

 might be totally unnerved. 



A few hours sped by, and a motion at the base of the tower 

 indicated a new attempt on the part of the besiegers. The experi- 

 ment developed itself in a cloud of smoke that gradually mounted 

 the tower and found vent through the trap-door. Then a flame 

 was seen below, and in a moment more the winding stairs were in 

 a blaze. The fortress they dared not storm, was to be burned out. 

 The girl looked around her as the smoke accumulated, and opened 

 the windows and the door that led to the gallery to give it vent. 

 The flames roared up through the aperture as through a hollow 

 tree, above which the lantern, like the topmost boughs, came out 

 against the night sky in bright relief or was wrapped in darkness 

 as the flame or the smoke successively lighted or enveloped it. 

 The girl cowered away from the flames as they came up the trap- 

 door to the fullest extent of the tower. The smoke became denser 

 and the stone beneath her warm. She wrapped a blanket around 

 her and kept her face down to the floor. The fresh air that stole 

 through the broken sash struggled with the smoke that curled 

 around her. Her ear caught the whoop of the Indians exulting in 

 their carnival, and an occasional shot that was fired at the lantern, 

 more in triumph than with the intent to slay. She heard the surf, 

 and the peevish cries of the sea-birds that circled around the 



