Dunwody's gaze was bent eagerly out and ahead. "My God!"
he exclaimed, at length. "We are too late! Look!"
At the same moment there came excited cries from the horsemen who
followed. Easily visible now against the black background of the
night, there showed a flower of light, rising and falling,
strengthening.
"Drive!" cried Dunwody; and now the sting of the lash urged on the
weary team. They swung around the turn of the shut-in, and came at
full speed into the approach across the valley. Before them lay
the great Tallwoods mansion house. It stood before them a pillar
of fire, prophetic, it might be repeated, of a vast and cleansing
catastrophe soon to come to that state and this nation; a
catastrophe which alone could lay the specter in our nation's house.
They were in time to see the last of the disaster, but too late to
offer remedy. By the time the coach had pulled up at the head of
the gravel way, before the yet more rapid horsemen had flung
themselves from their saddles, the end easily was to be guessed.
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