Following my companion through an arched doorway, I found myself back in the great cavernous drawing room, which was now a scene of blinding—of blazing—destruction. The heavy, ancient draperies had been turned into fiery sheets. The art works constituting Asher’s prized collection of paintings were ablaze in their gilded frames. The antique furnishings, including the chairs that Crockett and I had occupied earlier in the evening, had become little more than kindling to feed the insatiable appetite of the fire. Even the carved oaken ceiling had been transformed into a dome of roaring flame.

For the first time, Crockett seemed at a loss. With eyes that blazed as intensely as the surrounding conflagration, he peered through the main doorway of the drawing room, which opened into the corridor that led to the front of the house. Following his gaze, I perceived that the entire corridor was now completely obstructed by what appeared to be a solid mass of flame.

“Trapped!” he cried. “Like a pair o’ coons inside a holler stump!” Frantically, he looked about for another point of egress, while—seeking some relief for my heat-seared lungs—I turned my face upward like a drowning man in desperate search of oxygen.

At that instant, through a swirling cloud of smoke, I perceived a sight which—despite the intensity of the heat—immediately caused my blood to turn cold. Directly above my head hung an enormous wheel-shaped chandelier which depended from a massive braided cord, as thick—under normal circumstances—as the anchor-rope of a whaling vessel. By this point, however, the rope had been so eaten away by the fire that it had been reduced to the apparent thickness of a boot-lace! As I stared upward, as though transfixed by this petrifying sight, the remaining strands of the rope sizzled—snapped—and the great, circular chandelier came crashing downward towards my person!

Frozen with terror, I would certainly have been utterly obliterated—crushed like a beetle of the genus scarabæus under the bootheel of a heedless pedestrian. But in the next instant, I was struck, not from above, but from the side—by a large hurtling object that knocked me off my feet just as the falling chandelier plunged to the floor with a thunderous crash!

It was the frontiersman, who—having spotted my perilous situation—had thrown himself at my immobilized form and saved me from certain destruction!

“Dad fetch it, Poe,” he gasped, raising himself to his knees, “but you are a tolerable sight o’ trou—”

Before he could complete this remark, his attention appeared to be riveted by something several yards away from where I lay. Raising myself to one elbow, I followed his glance and saw at once the ghastly sight that had captured his notice.