METIPOM'S HOSTAGE
CHAPTER I
THE RED OMEN
David Lindall stirred uneasily in his sleep, sighed, muttered, and presently became partly awake. Thereupon he was conscious that all was not as it had been when slumber had overtaken him, for, beyond his closed lids, the attic, which should have been as dark at this hour as the inside of any pocket, was illuminated. He opened his eyes. The rafters a few feet above his head were visible in a strange radiance. He raised himself on an elbow, blinking and curious. The light did not come from the room below, nor was it the yellow glow of a pine-knot. No sound came to him save the loud breathing of his father and Obid, the servant, the former near at hand, the latter at the other end of the attic: no sound, that is, save the soft sighing of the night breeze in the pines and hemlocks at the eastern edge of the clearing. That was
