As she rose an ominous crackling caught her ear and held her at attention, then, in a horrid flash, the fire blazed out among the hay and brush which Holton had piled up against the stable door.
"Oh, oh!" she cried. "Th' stable is burnin'! Fire! Fire! Fire! Neb, are you in there? Don't you hear me, Neb? Th' stable air on fire!"
Neb's voice came from the dim interior, muffled and skeptical. "What dat?" he said. "Don't want no foolishness 'round heah. I's ahmed."
"It's me, Neb, me," she cried. "Th' stable 's burnin', Neb!"
"Gorramighty!" she heard Neb exclaim, now in a voice expressive of great fright. "Dat's so, dat's so! Quick, honey, open up de doah!"
Madge was working at the biggest log which Holton had thrust against the door to feed the blaze. The flames and smoke surged 'round her as she struggled with the unwieldy thing, her hands grasped, more than once, live coals, without making her release her hold. Once or twice the bursting flames, swung hither and swung yon by the light, vagrant breezes of the night and the drafts born of the fire, itself, flared straight toward her face, and, to save her hair, which, once igniting, would, she knew, make further work impossible, she had to draw back for a second; but each time, as she saw another chance, she sprang again to the desperate task. At last, after a dozen efforts, she had thrust the blazing log so far from the already burning door that Neb could push it open. He stumbled out, his old hands held before him, gropingly, half-suffocated.
"Neb, you ain't hurt," said she.
"You go ring dat bell," said he, pointing to a standard bearing at its top an ornamental iron crotch in which a big plantation bell was swung. "Soon's I get my bref from all dat smoke I'll go back an' git Queen Bess."
The girl sprang to the rope and soon the bell was ringing out a wild alarm.
"Hurry, Neb!" she cried. "Oh, hurry! Th' fire's a-gainin', ev'ry second! Hurry!"