wn his throat. He looked up.

"What! am I still alive?" he muttered faintly. "Oh, the bulls and the
fire! what's going to happen next?"

"That is more than I can tell you exactly," I answered; "but I suppose,
in time, the fire will burn itself out, and then we may get away from
this. Let us watch it meantime. It is worth looking at."

In a short time, after a few sighs, Jerry lifted up his head from the
ground, and sat up. The sight at which we gazed was especially grand
when a fresh puff of wind sent the flames rolling along, and throwing up
forked flashes, as they found new fuel to feed on. All the beasts it
had encountered had, of course, fled, terror inspired, before it; but
numberless young birds must have been destroyed, and we saw hundreds of
their parents hovering over the spot where their nests had been, in the
vain effort to save their offspring. Some we saw fall into the flames,
either from having their wings singed from approaching too near, or by
being suffocated with the smoke. When we saw the effects of the fire,
we were doubly thankful that we had not attempted to make our way across
the island. Once surrounded by that fiery furnace, we must have been,
to a certainty, burned to death. Suddenly a dreadful thought occurred
to me.

"Jerry," I exclaimed, "where can our friends be all this time? Is it
possible that they can have been among the grass, and that the fire may
have caught them up? Good Cousin Silas, and Mr Burkett, and jolly Mr
Kilby. Poor fellows! we may be much better off than they are."

"Oh, don't talk about it," said Jerry, shuddering; "it is too dreadful.
I hope--I hope they will have got into a place of safety. Poor fellows!
and it was all my doing. Do you know, Harry, I think we ought to pray
for them. They may be requiring aid which no mortal man can give them."

"Yes, indeed," said I; "we ought--let us." And together we knelt down
on the hard rock, surrounded by the roaring flames, the thick black
smoke curling around us, and sometimes almost suffocating us; and most
earnestly did we offer up our prayers for the safety of our friends and
for our own; and most thankful did we feel that we had been preserved
from the dangers into which we had been thrown. I pity the person who
is ashamed to acknowledge that he prays for protection both for himself
and those he cares for. How should we go through the world without the
protection of an all-merciful God? Often and oft