"What is the matter, Marion? What is all this?" replied he, turning round with a quivering lip, and in a tone of piercing agitation. "The blessings of your blind and helpless uncle be upon you! I am so agitated and confused! Where is the fire? Every body had forgotten me but you!"
"Uncle Arthur!" answered Marion, hurrying with him towards the door, where they were almost suffocated by a dense cloud of dust and smoke; "you were always brave and determined. All our courage is necessary now. Be firm and we may escape. You are now at the door. This wooden gallery is nearly burned away. It could not sustain us both, and no earthly power shall persuade me to go first. You can only impede me by speaking of it. Lose not a moment, then, for that will but increase our danger. Cling close to the wall; feel it all the way. I shall call out when you are safely over. Then remember the fifty steps we always counted to the first landing-place. After that, turn to the right, and you are safe. May the Almighty protect and guide you!"
"But Marion! my dear child! you are coming this way too?"
"Yes! or perhaps some other!" said she, assuming a tone of indifference, while she despondingly gazed at the rapidly consuming beam, and the thick smoke, which arose like mist before her sight.
"Go on, dear uncle, and pray for yourself and me."
Marion led Sir Arthur to the very brink of the yawning gulf, and cautiously placed him on the tottering gallery, deaf to his entreaties that she would seek her own safely first, and imploring him not to render her enterprise unavailing by delay. Flames were leaping upwards in the dark abyss beneath, dust and mortar fell in clouds on every side, while the heat and noise of the flashing light became more and more terrific; but still she spoke calmly to him, in tones of confidence and encouragement, giving directions while he remained in sight, and anxiously watching, as he slowly and cautiously groped his way. All Sir Arthur's firmness of look and voice had now returned, as he questioned or thanked her, when suddenly a deafening crash took place over head, an impending fragment of the roof was precipitated with a roaring convulsion upon the spot where a moment before the Admiral had stood, and nothing now remained beneath the eye of Marion but a hideous gulf of smoke and ruins, one bewildering medley of crackling beams and falling floors, a mighty mass of horror, which it made her giddy to behold.
Marion ceased now to speak, fearful that her voice might induce Sir Arthur, if yet alive, to return; and nearly hopeless of his having escaped, she now felt that no duty was so imperative, as, if possible, to seek her own safely. Yet what resource remained? Her heart beat hurriedly, stopped and beat again, while a choking sensation arose in her throat, when for the first time she fully contemplated her own instant danger. The noise was like that of a mighty wind, while the flames swept the very heavens, with a sound more appalling than the loudest thunder, and she hurried almost breathlessly back to Sir Arthur's apartment, which had not yet been attacked by the devouring element.
The heat was even there so intense, that she hastened to a window for air, and a shuddering groan burst from the surrounding multitude when they beheld her; but no succor was near, while the door became instantly blockaded by shivered beams and smouldering ruins, which had fallen at the entrance, setting it on fire, and she saw around long aisles of flame, and deep caverns filled with surges of fire and smoke.
Marion felt now that death impended in its most terrifying form. It was no new thing with her to prepare for the certain approach of dissolution; yet often as she had tried to realize the idea of that mighty change, never did it appear before with the appalling distinctness, which now filled her spirit with unutterable awe, while standing as it were between earth and heaven, all beneath full of boundless terror, but all above promising peace, and full of hope.
No effort of her own could avail. Marion looked at the long line of tall houses on her left, untouched by the flames. She glanced at the crowd below, all anxiously gazing upwards, in death-like stillness, and at the garden, which seemed paved with faces; but while the consuming flames pursued their desolating track, not a hope of rescue appeared. A storm of burning ashes fell on every side, and all around was a whirlwind of fire and smoke.