bold relief--the flames were seen raging furiously, devouring, as they
advanced, everything in their course, both to the right and to the left.
Strange sounds, too, were heard: there was the roaring, hissing, and
crackling of the fire, and ever and anon a report like that of heavy
guns, as some tall tree was riven in two by the intense heat which
surrounded it; the air also came like a blast from a furnace, laden with
smoke, ashes, and often sparks, which threatened to ignite the dry roof
of the building. The danger was increasing, for the flames were
advancing towards the confines of the wood nearest them. Now the fire,
snake-like, would be seen creeping along the grass, then catching hold
of some bush, which would speedily be wrapped in its deadly embrace;
next the lower boughs of the trees would catch, or the dry wood and
twigs round the stumps, and upward it would mount triumphant, roaring
and crackling--the slighter trees falling prostrate before it; the older
and thicker still withstanding its fierce assault, though left
branchless and blackened, with all vitality destroyed.

As yet the hut remained uninjured, though a semicircle of fire raged
furiously close to it, and here and there, where a bush still stood, or
some tufts of grass had not been closely cropped, the flames made
advances, and, winding along the ground, rose up, flickered, and died.
From the first outbreak of the conflagration various animals had been
seen crossing the open ground, as they escaped from the burning forest.
Birds innumerable, of varied plumage, aroused from their roosting
places, flew by, some uttering discordant screams of terror, many, with
scorched wings, falling dead before they reached the hut. As yet no
human beings had been seen.

"I trust that the savages will not venture to attack us," said James;
"only in the last extremity could I feel justified in firing at them."

"Arrah! it's but little of that sort of treatment they have received
since the white man first put his foot on their shores," observed Larry.
"I've heard tell of their being shot down by scores at a time, like
vermin. Many and many's the black fellow I've seen killed, and no
notice taken of it, and no thought by the man who did the deed, any more
than if he had fired at a wild beast."

Arthur interrupted Larry's remarks by exclaiming, "There they are,
though, and in no small numbers too, just coming round the edge of the
burning wood to the south-east!