He turned toward the barricade and saw that the flames were licking their way through the wall of logs, shooting and curling their hungry red tongues through many openings. The heat was becoming unbearable. Well, they were at the last trench now, he was surprised at the clearness and calmness of his mind. Death did not seem such a serious thing after all!
Coquenil crawled in behind the shelter of logs and crouched down beside the girl. She was quite unconscious now, but was breathing peacefully, smilingly, with face flushed and red lips parted. The glorious masses of her reddish hair were spread over the girls white shoulders, and it seemed to M. Paul that he had never seen so beautiful a picture of youth and innocence.
Suddenly there was a crumbling of logs at the passageway and the chamber became light as day while a blast of heat swept over them. Coquenil looked out around the end of the shelter and saw flames a yard long shooting toward them through widening breaches in the logs. And a steady roar began. It was nearly over now, although close to the floor the air was still good.
He reflected that, with the enormous amount of wood here, this fire would rage hotter and hotter for hours until the stones themselves would be red hot or white hot and—there would be nothing left when it all was over, absolutely nothing left but ashes. No one would ever know their fate.
Then he thought of his mother. He wished he might have sent her a line—still she would know that her boy had fallen in a good cause, as his father had fallen. He needn't worry about his mother—she would know.
Now another log crumbled with a sharp crackling. Alice stirred uneasily and opened her eyes. Then she sat up quickly, and there was something in her face Coquenil had never seen there, something he had never seen in any face.
"Willie, you naughty, naughty boy!" she cried. "You have taken my beautiful dolly. Poor little Esmeralda! You threw her up on that shelf, Willie; yes, you did."
Then, before Coquenil could prevent it, she slipped out from behind the shelter and stood up in the fire-bound chamber.
"Come back!" he cried, reaching after her, but the girl evaded him.
"There it is, on that shelf," she went on positively, and, following her finger, Coquenil saw, what he had not noticed before, a massive stone shelf jutting out from the wall just over the wood pile. "You must get my dolly," she ordered.