Something of the pathos of the situation dawned upon the men, both white and black, and they became silent, eyes strained toward the weakening, staggering quarry, so soon to fall into their hands.
For twenty minutes the silence was unbroken except for the swish of the marsh grass as the men waded through it. Far across the prairie could be seen the levee of the Mississippi River.
Suddenly the silence was broken by the long, dear, musical whistle of a boat upon the river.
Diada stopped. Again that long, clear whistle came belling across the sun-scorched prairie.
Diada raised her hands straight up above her head like a sun-worshiper, emitted a long, plaintive, howling scream, which ended with that word which was branded upon the memories of Tickfall forever: “Whoosh! Whoo-ash!”
So dramatic was her action that the hair stood up on every man’s head, and a cold chill swept across every sweat-drenched body.
The woman trotted slowly onward, moving now in a straight line toward the river. She had nearly a mile to travel to reach the levee, and she saw that she could not make the distance before she was captured.
Then she sprung another surprise--one which came very near being the death of her pursuers.
Kneeling in the grass she picked up two tiny splinters of bark and rubbed them rapidly together. A small blue flame curled around her fingers and caught in the dry marsh grass. Running to another point she dropped the flame there.
Then a wild yell of horror swept across the prairie and she beheld four hundred men in a panic, fleeing for their lives.
Diada was safe from the fire because what little breeze there was blew landward from the lake. In an incredible time that prairie had become a furnace of fire, the racing flames pursuing the screaming men, making a scene resembling nothing so much as the picture of that hell so vividly described “where the smoke of torment ascendeth and there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!”
The fire was checked when it reached the wide sandy road which led to the Tickfall landing.
By the mercy of Heaven the men reached that road unscorched by the flames! Mounting their horses, they looked across the charred grass of the prairie and beheld Diada trotting slowly onward toward the Mississippi levee.