The Conflagration.—A dread Alternative.—Forward or backward.—A bold Decision.—The Hood.—A terrible Venture.—The red Place of Flame.—The Place of the fiery Glow.—The toppling Tree.—A Struggle for Life.—The fiery Atmosphere.—The last supreme Moment.
AS this sight thus came upon his view, Phil drove his float towards the shore on the left, until his feet touched bottom; and standing here he looked down the river upon the conflagration. Away before him stretched that vista of fire, the pathway before him led through an avenue of flame, the burning forest glowed on either side, while overhead the vast volumes of smoke rolled along, and around him fell showers of ashes. There before him through that scene of terror lay his pathway; the way which lie thought was leading him to safety had brought him here; the river, to which he had intrusted himself, had borne him along to this; and at the very moment when his hopes had been most excited, they were dashed at once to the ground.

And what now?

What should he do?

Could he go back?

Go back? No; that was a simple impossibility. How should he go back? Not through the woods, for he could make but small advance through the dense forest that now surrounded him; not up the stream, for how could his strength bear him on against this current? He would have to wander for days before he could reach the place which he had left that morning; and of what avail would it be if he did reach it? What would he do? Where could he go? No; to go back was not to be thought of.

He saw plainly that he had now to make choice from, one of two alternatives.

One was to remain here and wait for the fires to subside.

The other was to go forward.

Now, the idea of waiting here was intolerable. To wait here idle, or, perhaps, slowly retreating before the advancing fires, enduring day after day the hunger, the fatigue, and the misery of such a situation, seemed the worst fate conceivable. Where could he sleep at night? How could he endure living in the water by day? Besides, the fire was evidently advancing in a direction which led it up stream; so that he would merely be driven before it back to his old quarters, to perish miserably. To be driven back before the fires would be a lingering death. It was not to be thought of, so long as any other course was possible.

What, then, was the other course?

The other course was—to go forward.

To go forward!

This was what Phil longed to do, with longing unspeakable. To go forward would lead him farther down the river. To go forward would carry him beyond the fires. Once let him pass the place where the fire raged, and then he would be on the other side of it; out of its hot breath; away from its stifling smoke. Could he but once make that passage, all would be well. To him it seemed as though on the other side of those fires there lay the abodes of men, and open lands, and pure air, and help, and liberty, and life. It was there that he longed to go.

But between him and what he fancied to lie beyond, there lay a barrier, terrific, tremendous, whose fullest horrors were unknown; a barrier that seemed impassable—irremovable. How could he hope to overcome it?

Under any other circumstances, the idea of passing that barrier could not, of course, be entertained. But there was one thing in Phil’s situation which made him think that the deed might be done; that it was not impossible, or even difficult. This one thing that gave hope was the river. Its stream might still bear him on its bosom, amidst those fires; he might find protection in its running waters. He could keep cool amid that fervent heat; and as the stream would itself bear him on, he would not need to make any efforts except those which served to guide him in a right course.

As he thought of this, and of the possibility of making his passage, he felt eager to go, but was restrained by other thoughts.

How far might those fires extend? How long could he endure the presence of those flaming woods, even in the waters of the river? Could he breathe? Would not the intense heat make breathing impossible? That burning district might extend for many and many a mile; and if he once ventured there, how would he ever get out of it? Or again, might not that possible obstacle in the river waters, which he had dreaded, be found down there amid the burning forests? And if so, what a terrible fate would be his!—to be arrested amid raging fires by a cataract—unable to advance, unable to retreat, unable to go ashore! If he could only form some idea as to the possible extent of the fire,—if he could only see beyond that next turn in the river, and find out how far those fiery shores ran on,—then he might know whether there was any hope. But this was impossible. The land before his eyes was a land of fire; its trees blackened by the fire, or still glowing red as they quivered under its attack; and there was no way by which he might know anything more than this.

At last there came a thought which gave him great encouragement. He thought that the fire in its march must exhaust itself after a certain time, and that after the trees were actually consumed there must be a departure of the heat. It was in the advanced part of its march that it maintained this furnace glow; at a certain distance behind, the heat might not be intolerable. If, therefore, he could traverse the flames and the fire that he saw before him, he might find the country beyond not much worse than it was here.

This thought, this hope, decided him. He determined to stake everything upon this, and venture upon that fiery path.

But before he attempted it he made the only preparation possible. What he dreaded most was the scorching glow of those flames; and as he did not know to what extent they might affect him, he wished above all things to guard his head against that danger.

He therefore unbound his clothes from the log, and took his coat out, after which he again bound the remainder of the clothes to the place where they had been. His coat he dipped in the river until it was saturated with the water, and then carefully adjusted it over his head, tying the sleeves under his chin so that it served the purpose of a hood. In this way he hoped to have a protection from the heat of the burning forest, while his eyes would be shaded from the dazzling and blinding glare, and would be able to watch without interruption or impediment the course of the river.

With these simple preparations Phil breathed a short prayer, committing himself to the care of God, and then summoning up all his courage, he directed his float down the stream once more, and then boldly launching forth, he dared the terrible journey. Once more the waters received him to their embrace; once more the river enfolded him, and bore him gently onward; once more he swept past the shores, and saw them recede on either side. The current bore him on. The fire drew near.

The fire drew near—and nearer. He felt its hot breath, growing hotter upon his brow—nearer yet—and then, at length, the flames dashed forward, the green trees passed from his line of vision, and his eyes saw nothing but one vast and far-reaching glare.

He plunged his head beneath the water, and held it under as long as he could. When he raised it again he found himself farther on in the midst of the flaming trees. The heat of the air was intense, yet not so much so as he had feared. His dripping coat hung round his head, protecting him. His course was true, for looking forward he saw that he was still in the very middle of the stream.

One look was sufficient, and then, desiring to prepare himself as much as possible for the worst that the fire might bring against him, he once more plunged his head under.

When he next raised his head, he found the scene somewhat changed. The dazzling flash of leaping, up-springing flames had passed away. He had moved past the advanced line of the fire where the flames were assailing the light twigs and foliage of the trees, and had come to that inner portion where the trees were standing bare of everything that the flame could destroy; skeletons—glowing red in the embrace of consuming fire. The glow was all around—on the ground, on the trees—and the emanation of heat was far more intense. The air was now like that of a room heated to an intense degree; yet, to his immense relief, it was not worse than he had known air to be before; and to him it seemed like the atmosphere of a room overheated on some winter day. He could breathe without difficulty, and thanks to his extemporized hood, and his plunges under water, he did not feel that scorching glow of the hot fires that he might otherwise have felt. Well was it for him that he was spared the necessity of exertion. In that atmosphere any exertion would have overcome him in a very short time. As it was he had only to cling to his float, steer it straight, and from time to time plunge his head under water.

In this way he was borne steadily on, and succeeded in preserving himself from destruction during that first entrance into the avenue of flame. He was now in the avenue of fire, and over this the flood bore him, until at length he reached that bend on the river which he had seen before starting upon this last journey.

The river turned to the right, and swept away for about as great a distance as lay between this bend and the last one. As Phil looked at it in eager and anxious scrutiny, he saw to his dismay that the fire glow covered all the land before him, and on either side. He had been too sanguine, and had not made sufficient allowance for the tenacity of the fire where it once has fixed its grasp. There rose the trees—the skeletons—red—glowing in a fervid glow; and the air was hotter here—more torrid—more stagnant.

Here, then, Phil found a severer trial than any which he had yet experienced; and the sight of these new regions, all glowing in the wide-spread conflagration, showing far and wide the withering signs of fiery devastation, filled him with awe and apprehension. There was nothing, however, which he could do. He could only do as he had been doing, and draw his hood over his face as far as he could without obstructing the view, and guide himself in the right course, and occasionally plunge beneath the waters so as to maintain the protection that was afforded by the moisture and the sheltering hood.

The time seemed long as he thus drifted on; but at length, to his great joy, he reached the next bend in the river, and began slowly to pass around it.

But the joy which he had felt at reaching this place soon passed away, when, on turning the point and entering upon the new course of the river, he beheld before him an unchanged scene of devastation. There, as before, the glowing fire appeared on the ground below and in the trees above; the latter rising all red in the fire, and crumbling slowly beneath its touch. One difference there was; and that was, that in this new scene the conflagration seemed to be farther advanced; giant branches fell to the ground; tall trees toppled over, and the silence that had reigned was now broken by the thunder of those falling masses.

The air here was also hotter; for as the fire had been burning longer, so everything was affected by its long intensity. Now it was that Phil first began to find something approximating to what he had dreaded—a heat which made breathing difficult, and made the air like that at the mouth of a furnace.

Through this he drifted on as before. His soul already began to yield to despondency; while hope grew fainter, and a dark dismay gradually took possession of his heart. How could it end? Would it ever end? Were there any limits to the burning woods? Must he thus go drifting on, and find that every new scene, as it opened up, was worse than its predecessor?

So he drifted on.

As he thus went on, he suddenly saw immediately before him, on the edge of the bank, a tree which was slanting over the river, and seemed to him to be swaying, or toppling slowly over. It had been assailed most fiercely by the flames. Its trunk and branches were all glowing red, while the fire seemed to have burned into the ground, and consumed those roots which had thus far held it in its place. The slight movement had arrested Phil, and instinctively he turned his course towards the opposite shore. The tree was tall, but whether it could reach across the river, he could not tell. It seemed to be falling, and if it did, it would fall across the stream. Thus Phil, by a blind instinct, shifted his course slightly.