“Is not the captain there?” asked the lieutenant.

“No, sir,” replied the sergeant, “he started off to go beyond the line half an hour ago.”

“Alone?”

“No, sir; that chap that came in at dusk was with him.”

“It’s strange he should have gone without speaking to me about it.”

“I wanted him to take some of our fellows along, sir, but he didn’t care to.  By George! that house is afire, sir.  Look there.”

While talking, they had been proceeding toward the farm-house, when the light from the windows brightened suddenly into a broad glare, and called forth the sergeant’s exclamation.  Before they reached the building a jet of flame had leaped from one of the casements, and continued to whirl like a flaming ribbon in the air.  They quickened their pace to a run, and bursting into the doorway, were driven back by a dense volume of smoke, that rolled in black masses along the corridor.  They went in again, and the sergeant pushed open the door of the room where Moll lay bound, but shut it quickly again, as a tongue of flame lashed itself toward him like an angry snake.

“It’s all afire, sir,” he said, coughing and spluttering through the smoke.  “Are there any of the captain’s traps inside?”

“Nothing at all,” replied the lieutenant.  “Let’s go in, however, and see what can be done.”

They entered, but were driven back by the baffling smoke and the flames that were now licking all over the dry plastering of the room.

“It’s no use,” said the lieutenant, when they had gained their breath in the open air.  “There’s no water, except in the brook down yonder, and what the men have in their canteens.  The house is like tinder.  Let it go, sergeant; it’s not worth saving at the risk of singing your whiskers.”

The men had now come up, and gathered about the officer to receive his commands.

“Let the old shed go, my lads,” he said.  “It’s well enough that some rebel should give us a bonfire now and then.  Only stand out of the glare, boys, or you may have some of those devils yonder making targets of you.”

The men fell back into the shadow, and standing in little groups, or seated upon the sward, watched the burning house, well pleased to have some spectacle to relieve the monotony of the night.  And they looked with indolent gratification, passing the light jest and the merry word, while the red flames kept up their wild sport, and great masses of rolling vapor upheaved from the crackling roof, and blackened the midnight sky.  None sought to read the mystery of that conflagration.  It was but an old barn gone to ashes a little before its time.  Perhaps some mischievous hand among them had applied the torch for a bit of deviltry.  Perhaps the flames had caught from Rawbon’s pipe, which he had thrown carelessly among a heap of rubbish when startled by Molly’s sudden apparition.  Or yet, perhaps, though Heaven forbid it, for the sake of human nature, the same hand that had struck so nearly fatally once, had been tempted to complete the work of death in a more terrible form.