THE FIRE FIEND. Ill 



no ordinary burning of scrub which we beheld, but 

 something much more serious. 



At the spot where the fire was visible the lake 

 makes a bend. From our point of view it was a bend 

 to the right. The fire was spread all over the slope 

 of the mountain which faced us on the far side of 

 the bend. Everywhere, up and down, and across and 

 across, the face of the mountain was streaked with 

 long, scintillating lines of blood-red glare, with pillars 

 of vivid brightness here and there. In some places 

 these columns of fire were so close together as to 

 convey the impression of curling crests of a sea of 

 fire, but a sea of fire tilted up on the distant horizon 

 in such a way that we could see the whole of it, 

 hanging, as it were, like a curtain from sky to earth. 

 The illusion was heightened by the dark masses of 

 the foliage showing up like the hollows between the 

 breakers of flame. It was not a steady, quiet, per- 

 sistent blaze; the flames were everywhere in move- 

 ment, full of darting, devouring energy, waxing, 

 waning, dying out, leaping up afresh, now here, now 

 there. Had it not first suggested the idea of a 

 tumultuous sea of fire, it might, perhaps, have shaped 

 itself in the imagination into the image of a host of 

 flambent snakes, writhing in torture, striving to break 

 through an imprisoning curtain. We watched the 

 scene w'ith eyes of fascinated awe, thankful that we 

 were no nearer to it than we actually were. 



For two nights and the intervening day the fire 

 continued w-ith the same intensity. On the third 

 night it w^as still going on, though abating. By the 

 fourth night it was almost impossible to discern either 

 streak or glow. It was practically extinct. 



