rest under the fan of
the wind was a glowing furnace. She looked at the belching smoke and
the rocketing flames and listened to the roar of it all, fascinated.

"How terrible," she cried, "and how beautiful."

"The Inferno!" said Stane. "I've seen it before."

"And you wanted me to leave you to that?" she cried.

"Pardon me, no! I did not want you to be caught in it, that is all!
Listen!"

Across the water came what might have been the sound of a fusillade of
rifles, and with it mingled another sound as of shrieking.

"What is it?" asked the girl.

"Branches bursting in the heat, trees falling."

"How long will it last?"

"Don't know. Weeks maybe! The fire might travel a hundred miles."

Helen shuddered again. "If we had not been near the water----"

"Finis!" he said with a little laugh, and they fell silent again
watching the awful thing from which they had so narrowly escaped.

The raft drifted slowly along, borne by a current towards the northern
end of the lake and crossing it obliquely, and the girl crouched in her
place apparently absorbed in the spectacle the fire afforded. An hour
passed, and then glancing at her Stane saw that she had fallen asleep.
A little smile came on his face, and was followed by an ardent look of
admiration as he continued to stare at her. She was flushed with sleep,
and grimy with sweat and smoke and dirt. The grey shirt-sleeves, rolled
up above the elbows, showed her scratched forearms, and on one hand,
hanging across her knee in the abandon of sleep, with startling
incongruity gleamed a diamond ring. The beautiful chestnut hair had
escaped from its fastenings, and hung in tumbled masses, and there were
ragged tears here and there in the borrowed raiment. Never, thought
Stane to himself, had he seen a lady more dishevelled or more
beautiful, and as he watched her sleeping, worn out with her herculean
labours, his heart warmed to her in gratitude and love.

She slept for quite a long time, and when she opened her eyes, she
looked round in surprise. The fire still roared on its way through the
woods on the distant shore, over which hung a huge pall of smoke, but
the raft was now a long way from the zone of destruction and drifting
slowly but surely towards the northern end of the lake. She measured
with her eyes the distance they had drifted, and looked towards the
shore which they were steadily approaching, then she spoke.

"I must have slept for a long time."

"Three h