CHAPTER XV.

"Look, look, Prevost!" cried Lord H----, after they had gazed during one or two minutes in silence; "the wind is drifting away the smoke; I can see the top of your house; it is safe as yet--and will be safe," he added, "for the wind sets somewhat away from it."

"Not enough," said Mr. Prevost, in a dull, gloomy tone. "The slightest change, and it is gone. The house I care not for; the barns, the crops, are nothing. They can be replaced, or I could do without them; but there are things within that house, my lord, I cannot do without."

"Do you not think we can reach it?" asked Lord H----. "If we were to push our horses into the stream there, we might follow its course up, as it seems broad and shallow, and the trees recede from the banks. Are there any deep spots in its course?"

"None, massa," replied the negro.

"Let us try, at all events," exclaimed Lord H----, turning his horse's head; "we can but come back again, if we find the heat and smoke too much for us."

"My daughter!" ejaculated Mr. Prevost, in a tone of deep, strong feeling; "my daughter, Lord H----!"

The young nobleman was silent. The stories he had heard that day, and many that he had heard before, of persons getting entangled in burning forests, and never being able to escape--which, while, in the first enthusiasm of the moment, he thought only of himself and of Mr. Prevost, had seemed to him but visions, wild chimeras--assumed a terrible reality, as soon as the name of Edith was mentioned; and he would have shuddered to see the proposal adopted, which he had made only the moment before. He was silent, then; and Mr. Prevost was the first who spoke.

"I must go," he said, with gloomy earnestness, after some brief consideration--"I must go, let what will betide."

He relapsed into silence again, and there was a terrible struggle within his bosom, which the reader cannot, even in part, comprehend, without having withdrawn for him that dark curtain which shades the inmost secrets of the heart from the cold eyes of the unobservant world. He had to choose whether he would risk the sacrifice of many things dearer to him than life itself, or go through that fiery gulf before him--whether he would take that daughter, far dearer than life, with him, exposing her to all the peril that he feared not for himself, the scorching flame, the suffocating smoke, the falling timber--or whether he should leave her behind him, to find her way in darkness, and through a forest perhaps tenanted by enemies, to a small farmhouse, seven or eight miles off, where resided some kind and friendly people, who would give her care and good attendance. Then came the question--for the former was soon decided--whom he should leave with her. Some one was needed with himself, for, in the many, many perils that environed his short path, he could hardly hope to force his way alone, unaided. Lord H---- might have been his most serviceable companion in one view; for his courage, his boldness, his habits of prompt decision, and his clearness of observation, were already well and publicly known.

But then, to leave Edith alone in that dark night, in that wild wood, with nothing but a negro for her guide; a man shrewd and clear-witted, keen and active enough, yet with few moral checks upon his passions, few restraints of education or honour, and still fewer of religion and the fear of God. It was not to be thought of. In Lord H---- he felt certain he could trust. He knew that, in scenes as dangerous to the spirit as any he could go through would be to the body, he had come out unfallen, unwounded, untouched. He had the reputation and the bearing of a man of honour and a gentleman; and Mr. Prevost felt that the man must be base, indeed--low, degraded, vile, who, with such a trust as Edith on his conscience, could waver even in thought.

Such considerations pressed upon him heavily--they could not be disposed of by rapid decision; and he remained for two or three minutes profoundly silent. Then, turning suddenly to Lord H----, he said,--

"My lord, I am going to entrust to you the dearest thing I have on earth, my daughter--to place her under the safeguard of your honour--to rely for her protection and defence upon your chivalry. As an English nobleman, of high name and fame, I do trust you without a doubt. I must make my way through that fire by some means--I must save some papers, and two pictures, which I value more than my own life. I will take my good friend Chando here with me. I must leave you to conduct Edith to a place of safety."

"Oh, my father!" cried Edith; but he continued to speak without heeding her.

"If you follow that road," he continued, pointing to the one which led southward, "you will come, at the distance of about seven miles, to a good-sized farmhouse on the left of the road. Edith knows it, and can show you the way up to it. The men are most likely out, watching the progress of the fire; but you will find the women within; and good and friendly they are, though homely and uneducated. I have no time to stop for further directions. Edith, my child, God bless you! Do not cloud our parting with a doubt of Heaven's protection. Should anything occur--and be it as He wills--you and Walter will find at the lawyer's at Albany all papers referring to this small farm, and to the little we still have in England. God bless you, my child, God bless you!"

Thus saying, he turned and rode fast down the hill, beckoning the negro to follow him.

"Oh, my father, my father!" cried Edith, dropping her rein and clasping her hands together, longing to follow, yet unwilling to disobey. "He will be lost--I fear he will be lost!"

"I trust not," said Lord H----, in a firm, calm tone, well fitted to inspire hope and confidence. "He knows the country well, and can take advantage of every turning to avoid the flame. Besides, if you look along what I imagine to be the course of the stream, you will see a deep undulation, as it were, in that sea of smoke, and, when the wind blows strongly, it is almost clear. He said, too, that the banks continued free from trees."

"As far as the bridge and the rapids near our house," replied Edith; "after that, they are thickly wooded."

"But the fire has evidently not reached that spot," observed the young nobleman; "all the ground within half a mile of the house is free at present. I saw it quite distinctly a moment ago, and the wind is setting this way."

"Then can we not follow him?" asked his fair companion imploringly.

"To what purpose?" returned Lord H----; "and besides," he added, "let me call to your mind the answer of the good soldier, Corporal Clithero, just now. He said he must obey orders, and he was right. A soldier to his commander; a child to a parent; a Christian to his God, have, I think, but one duty--to obey. Come, Edith, let us follow the directions we have received. The sun is already beneath the forest edge; we can do no good gazing here; and although I do not think there is any danger, and believe you will be quite safe under my protection, yet, for many reasons, I could wish to place you beneath the shelter of a roof and in the society of other women as soon as may be."

"Thank you much," she answered, gazing up into his face, on which the lingering light in the west cast a warm glow; "you remind me of my duty, and strengthen me to follow it. I have no fear of any danger, with you to protect me, my lord--it was for my father only I feared. But it was wrong to do so even for him. God will protect us all, I do hope and believe. We must take this way, my lord." And with a deep sigh she turned her horse's head upon the path which her father had pointed out.

There is no situation in which good feeling shows itself more brightly than in combat with good feeling. It may seem a paradox; but it is not so. Lord H---- did not at that moment like to hear Edith Prevost call him by his formal title. He would fain have had her give him some less ceremonious name. Nay, more, he would have gladly poured into her ear, at that moment of grief and anxiety, the tale of love which had more than once during their ride been springing to his lips, and which he fondly fancied, with man's usual misappreciation of woman's sensitiveness, might give her support and comfort--for by this time he felt sure that, if he rightly appreciated her, she was not indifferent towards him. But he remembered that she was there a young girl, left alone with him, at night, in a wild forest--a precious trust to his honour and his delicacy; and he struggled hard and manfully to govern every feeling, and regulate every word. What if a degree of growing tenderness modulated his tone?--what if the words "Miss Prevost," were uttered as if they should have been "Edith?"--what if the familiar expression of "my dear young lady," sounded almost as if it had been, "dear girl?" We must not look too closely, or judge too hardly. There was but enough tenderness to comfort, and not alarm--just sufficient familiarity to make her feel that she was with a friend, and not a stranger.

No general subject of conversation could, of course, be acceptable at that moment; only one topic had they to discuss. And yet Lord H---- made more of that than some men would have made of a thousand. He comforted, he consoled; he raised up hope and expectation. His words were full of promise; and from everything he wrung some illustration to support and cheer.

If he had appeared amiable in the eyes of Edith, in the quiet intercourse of calm and peaceful hours, much more so did he appear to her now, when the circumstances in which she was placed called forth all that was kind and feeling in his heart, naturally gentle, though it had been somewhat steeled by having to struggle and to act with cold and heartless men in scenes of peril and of strife.

A few moments after they left the summit of the hill, and began the more gentle descent which stretched away to the south-east, the last rays of the sun were withdrawn, and night succeeded; but it was the bright and sparkling night of the American sky. There was no moon, indeed; but the stars burst forth in multitudes over the firmament, larger, more brilliant, than they are ever beheld even in the clearest European atmosphere, and they gave light enough to enable the two travellers to see their path. The wind still blew strongly, and carried the smoke away; and the road was wide enough to show the starry canopy overhanging the trees.

Lord H---- lifted his hand, and, pointing to one peculiarly large orb which glittered not far from the zenith, said in a grave but confident tone, "The God who made that great, magnificent world, and who equally created the smallest emmet that runs along our path--who willed into being innumerable planetary systems with their varied motions, and perfected the marvellous organization of the most minute insect, must be a God of love and mercy, as well as of power; and is still, I do believe, acting in mercy in all that befalls us here on earth."

"I believe and trust so too," answered Edith; "yet there are times and seasons when, in our blindness, we cannot see the working of the merciful, in the mighty hand, and the heart sinks with terror for want of its support. Surely there can be no sin in this. Our Divine Master, himself, when in our mortal nature, on the cross, exclaimed, in the darkest hour, '_My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!_'"

Obliged to go very slowly, but little progress had been made in an hour, and, by the end of that time, a strong odour of the burning wood and a pungent feeling in the eyes showed that some portion of the smoke was reaching them.

"I fear the wind has changed," said Edith; "the smoke seems coming this way."

"The better for your father's house, dear lady," answered Lord H----. "It was a change to the westward he had to fear; the more fully east, the better."

They fell into silence again; but in a minute or two after, looking to the left of the road, where the trees were very closely set, though there was an immense mass of brushwood underneath, Lord H---- beheld a small solitary spot of light, like a lamp burning. It was seen and hidden, seen and hidden again, by the trees as they rode on, and must have been at about three or four hundred yards' distance. It seemed to change its place, too; to shift, to quiver; and then, in a long winding line, it crept slowly round and round the boll of a tree, like a fiery serpent, and, a moment after, with flash, and crackling flame, and fitful blaze, it spread flickering over the dry branches of a pitch-pine.

"The fire is coming nearer, dear Miss Prevost," said Lord H----, "and it is necessary we should use some forethought. How far, think you, this farmhouse is now?"

"Nearly four miles," answered Edith.

"Does it lie due south?" asked her companion.

"Very nearly," she replied.

"Is there any road to the westward?" demanded the young nobleman, with his eyes still fixed upon the distant flame.

"Yes," she answered; "about half a mile on, there is a tolerable path made along the side of the hill, on the west, to avoid the swamp during wet weather, but it rejoins this road a mile or so farther on."

"Let us make haste," said Lord H---- abruptly; "the road seems fair enough just here, and I fear there is no time to lose."

He put his hand upon Edith's rein as he spoke, to guide the horse on, and rode forward, perhaps somewhat less than a quarter of a mile, watching with an eager eye the increasing light to the east, where it was now seen glimmering through the trees in every direction, looking through the fretted trellis-work of branches, trunks, and leaves, like a multitude of red lamps hung up in the forest. Suddenly, at a spot where there was an open space or streak, as it was called, running through some two or three hundred yards of the wood, covered densely with brush, but destitute of tall trees, the whole mass of the fire appeared to view; and the travellers seemed gazing into the mouth of a furnace. Just then, the wind shifted a little more, and blew down the streak: the cloud of smoke rolled forward; flash after flash burst forth along the line as the fire caught the withered leaves on the top of the bushes: then the bushes themselves were seized upon by the fire, and sent flaming far up into the air.

Onward rushed the destroying light, with a roar, and a crackle, and a hiss--caught the taller trees on either aide, and poured across the road right in front.

Edith's horse, unaccustomed to such a sight, started and pulled vehemently back; but Lord H----, catching her riding-whip from her hand, struck him sharply on the flank, and forced him forward by the rein. But again the beast resisted.

Not a moment was to be lost; time wasted in the struggle must have been fatal; and casting the bridle free, he threw his right arm round her light form, lifted her from the saddle and seated her safely before him. Then striking his spurs into the sides of his well-trained charger, he dashed at full speed, through the burning bushes, and in two minutes had gained the ground beyond the fire.

"You are saved, dear Edith," he said,--"you are saved!"

He could not call her Miss Prevost then; and, though she heard the name he gave her, at that moment of gratitude and thanksgiving it sounded only sweetly on her ear.

I have not paused to tell what were Edith's thoughts and feelings when she first saw the fire hemming them in. They were such as the feelings of any young and timid woman might be at the prospect of immediate and terrible destruction.

As always happens, when any of the stern events of Fate place before us an apparent certainty of speedy death--when the dark gates between the two valleys seem to be reached, and opened to let us pass--when the flood, or the fire, or the precipitous descent, or any other sudden casualty, seems ready to hurry us in an instant into eternity, without dimming the sight of the mind, or withering the powers of reason and of memory, as in the slow progress of sickness or decay--as always happens, I say, in such cases, Edith's mind passed rapidly, like a swallow on the wing, over every event of her past existence; and thoughts, feelings, hopes, joys, griefs, cares, expectations, regrets, rose one after the other to the eye, presented with the clearness and intensity which will probably appertain in a future state to all the things done in the flesh. Every memory, too, as it rose before her, seemed to say, in a sad and solemn tone, "We are gone for ever!"

It is terrible to part with life--with all its joys, ay, and even with its cares--at the bright season of hope and happiness; to have the blossom broken off the bough of life, before the fruit can form or ripen; and Edith felt it as much as any one could feel it. But it is only necessary to allude to her feelings, in order to contrast them with the joy and gratitude she felt when the moment of peril had passed away.

"Thank God, thank God!" exclaimed Edith; "and oh, my lord, how can I ever show my gratitude to you?"

Lord H---- was silent for a moment, and then said, in a low tone--for it _would_ be spoken:--

"Dear Edith, I have no claim to gratitude; but if you can give me love instead, the gratitude shall be yours for life. But I am wrong, very wrong, for speaking to you thus, at this moment, and in these circumstances. Yet there are emotions which force themselves into words, whether we will or not. Forget those I have spoken, and do not tremble so, for they shall not be repeated till I find a fitter occasion--and then they shall immediately. Now, dear Edith, I will ride slowly on with you to this farmhouse; will leave you there with the good people; and, if possible, get somebody to guide me round another way, to join your father, and assure him of your safety. That he is safe, I feel confident; for this very change of wind must have driven the fire away from him. Would you rather walk? for I am afraid you have an uneasy seat, and we are quite safe now; the flames all go another way."

From many motives, Edith preferred to go on foot, and Lord H---- suffered her to slip gently to the ground. Then, dismounting himself, he drew her arm through his, and, leading his horse by the bridle, proceeded along the road over the shoulder of the hill, leaving the lower-road, which the flame still menaced, on their left.

Edith needed support, and their progress was slow, but Lord H---- touched no more upon any subject that could agitate her, and at the end of about an hour and a half, they reached the farmhouse, and knocked for admission.

There was no answer, however; no dogs barked; no sounds were heard; and all was dark within. Lord H---- knocked again. Still all was silent; and, putting his hand upon the latch, he opened the door.

"The house seems deserted," he said. Then, raising his voice, he called loudly to wake any slumbering inhabitant who might be within.

Still no answer was returned; and he felt puzzled, and more agitated than he would have been in the presence of any real danger. No other place of shelter was near; he could not leave Edith there, as he had proposed; yet the thought of passing a long night with her in that deserted house produced a feeling of indecision, chequered by many emotions which were not usual to him.

"This is most unlucky!" he ejaculated. "What is to be done now?"

"I know not," replied Edith, in a low and distressed tone. "I fear, indeed, the good people are gone. If the moon would but rise, we might see what is really in the house."

"I can soon get a light," rejoined Lord H----; "there is wood enough scattered about to light a fire. Stay here in the doorway, while I fasten my horse, and gather some sticks together. I will not go out of sight."

The sticks were soon gathered, and carried into the large kitchen into which the door opened directly. Lord H----'s pistols, which he took from the holsters, afforded the means of lighting a cheerful fire on the hearth; and, as soon as it blazed up, a number of objects were seen in the room, which showed that the house had been inhabited lately, and abandoned suddenly. Nothing seemed to have been carried away, indeed; and amongst the first things that were perceived, much to Edith's comfort, were candles, and a tin lamp of Dutch manufacture, ready trimmed. These were soon lighted; and Lord H----, taking his fair companion's hand in his, and gazing fondly on her pale and weary face, begged her to seek some repose.

"I cannot, of course," he said, "leave you here, and join your father, as I proposed just now; but, if you will go upstairs, and seek some room, where you can lock yourself in, in case of danger, I will keep guard here below. Most likely, all the people of the house have gone forth to watch the progress of the fire and may return speedily."

Edith mused, and shook her head, saying,--

"I think something else must have frightened them away."

"Would you have courage to fire a pistol in case of need?" asked Lord H----, in a low tone.

Edith gently inclined her head, and he then added,--

"Stay, I will charge this for you again."

He then reloaded the pistol, the charge of which he had drawn to light the fire, and was placing it in Edith's hand, when a tall, dark figure glided into the room with a step perfectly noiseless. Lord H---- drew her suddenly back, and placed himself before her; but a second glance showed him the dignified form and fine features of Otaitsa's father.

"Peace!" exclaimed the old chief. "Peace to you, my brother!"

And he held out his hand to Lord H----, who took it frankly. Black Eagle then unfastened the blue blanket from his shoulders, and threw it round Edith, saying,--

"Thou art my daughter, and art safe. I have heard the voice of the cataract, and its sound was sweet. It is a great water, and a good. The counsel is wise, my daughter. Go thou up, and rest in peace. The Black Eagle will watch by the cataract till the eyes of morning open in the east. The Black Eagle will watch for thee, as for his own young; and thou art safe."

"I know I am when thou art near, my father," said Edith, taking his brown hand in hers; "but is it so with all mine?"

"If I can make it so," answered Black Eagle. "Go, daughter, and be at peace. This one, at least, is safe also; for he is a great chief of our white fathers, and we have a treaty with him. The man of the Five Nations who would lift his hand against him is accursed."

Edith knew that she could extract nothing more from him, and, her mind somewhat lightened, but not wholly relieved, she ascended to the upper story. Lord H---- seated himself on the step at the foot of the stairs; and the Indian chief crouched down beside him. But both kept a profound silence; and, in a few minutes after, the moon, slowly rising over the piece of cleared ground in front, poured in upon their two figures as they sat there, side by side, in strange contrast.