'Heaven be praised!' at length Henrich exclaimed--and they were the first words he had uttered since the flight had been resumed--' Heaven be praised! I see the rocks dimly through the clouds of smoke. Yet a few moments, and we shall be safe. Already the grass around us is shorter and thinner: we are leaving the savanna, and shall soon reach the barren defile, where the flames will find no fuel'
The horses seemed to know that safety was near at hand, for they bounded forward with fresh vigor, and quickly joined the group of breathless fugitives, who, having reached the extremity of the prairie, had paused to rest from their desperate exertions, and to look out for those of their companions who were missing, but who they hoped would soon overtake them.
Oriana snatched her now smiling boy from Mailah's arms, and embraced him with a fervency and emotion that showed how little she had hoped to see his face again. But her own happy and grateful feelings were painfully interrupted by her friend's exclamation of agony--
'Where is my Lincoya?' she cried. 'Did he not follow with you? I saw him close to me when I paused to take your child: and he is not here! O, my Lincoya! my brave, my beautiful boy! Have you perished in the flames, with none to help you?' And she broke forth into cries and lamentations that wrung the heart of Oriana.
She could give her no tidings of the lost youth, for she knew not whose fainting forms she had passed in the narrow shrouded path; and it was utterly impossible now to go and seek him, for the flames had followed hard upon their flight, and were still raging over the mass of dry herbage, and consuming even the scattered tufts that grew among the stones at the entrance to the ravine. So intense was the heat of the glowing surface, even after the blaze had died away, that it would not be practicable to pass over it for many hours; and the party, who had reached a place of safety, were compelled to make arrangements for passing the night where they were, not only that they might be ready to seek the remains of their lost friends the next morning, but also because their own weary limbs, and those of their trembling horses, refused to carry them any further. All the provisions and other baggage, which they had carried for their journey, had been abandoned in the flight, end had become a rapid prey to the devouring flames. But several of the scorched and affrighted prairie fowls, and a few hares-- exhausted with their long race--were easily secured by the young hunters, end afforded a supper to the weary company.