They were thus enabled to survey their own hitherto peaceful domain, as well as the surrounding wood, from which a dense smoke was now rising. The moist and green trees had long refused to blaze, but at length, as the boys were silently and anxiously watching, they saw the red threads crawl through the black clouds; they heard the loud crackling of dried branches; and finally the broad flames rose majestically above the dark trees, and spread rapidly towards the east side of the mountain, urged by a west wind. The roaring of the flames, the noise of falling timber, the screams and discordant cries of hundreds of disturbed and affrighted birds, which continued to wheel, as if fascinated, over the flames, prevented any sound of human voices being audible; and the actors in the frightful devastation were alike unseen and unheard.
Hugh sobbed with grief as he watched numbers of his favorite birds, suffocated with the thick smoke, fall down senseless; Gerald exclaimed against the destruction of the ripe oats in the glade below, which were now blazing fiercely; and Arthur, pale and agitated, saw the fearful conflagration rapidly spreading up the side of the mountain, and dreaded the moment when, the brushwood being consumed above the cave, the slabs that covered the entrance must inevitably be detected, and they must submit to be baited in their last hold.
"Arthur, what shall we do?" exclaimed Hugh, "for the fire is running up the brush at the side of the mountain. See, now, it blazes over the edge; it has caught a heap of potato stalks that I was so careless as to leave there. Gerald, there are Margaret's favorite parterres all blazing,--the scarlet geranium, the blue convolvulus, and the sweet, home-like jasmine. How she will grieve! But, I forget, we have more to grieve for; already the sparks are falling on the bush over our grotto! What will become of Margaret and papa?"
"We must go to them," replied Arthur. "We have seen the worst that can happen; it is useless remaining here. Let us comfort them, and lead them into the deepest recesses of the mountain. We may, at least, escape the fearful effects of the conflagration."
"And then, Arthur," said Hugh, "we may surely defend them with our guns. It will be a just cause."