Dennis was about to intimate that, though this was true in knightly creed, still among all the women in the world there might be a preference, when a score of horses, driven before the fire, and goaded by the burning cinders, rushed down the beach, into the water, right among the human fugitives.
Again went up the cry of agony and terror. Some were no doubt stricken down not to rise again. In the melee Dennis pushed out into deeper water, where the frantic animals could not plunge upon him. A child floated near, and he snatched it up. As soon as the poor brutes became quiet, clasping Christine with his right arm and holding up the child with the other, he waded into shallow water.
The peril was now perhaps at its height, and all were obliged to wet their heads, to keep even their hair from singeing. Those on the beach threw water on each other without cessation. Many a choice bit of property—it might be a piano, or an express-wagon loaded with the richest furs and driven to the beach as a place of fancied security—now caught fire, and added to the heat and consternation.
When this hour of extreme danger had passed, standing with the cold billows of the lake breaking round him, and the billows of fire still rolling overhead, Dennis began to sing in his loud, clear voice:
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly,
While the billows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high."
Voice after voice joined in, some loud and strong, but others weak and trembling—the pitiful cry of poor terror-stricken women to the only One who it seemed could help them in their bitter extremity. Never before were those beautiful words sung in such accents of clinging, touching faith. Its sweet cadence was heard above the roar of the flames and the breakers.
Christine could only cling weeping to Dennis.
When the hymn ceased, in harshest discord the voice of a half-drunken man grated on their ears.
"An' what in bloody blazes does yer Jasus burn us all up for, I'd like to know. Sure an' he's no right to send us to hell before our time."
"Oh, hush! hush!" cried a dozen voices, shocked and pained.