"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!"