“What?”
“Suppose that they could manage to set fire to the block-house here.”
“Don’t talk about it, man. What? With those women and children there! No; we must shelter them from that, even if we die for it.”
I was standing with my father when Colonel Preston’s house had been reduced to a glowing heap of embers, and he came up to my father to say in a light, cheerful way—
“Ah, I’ve been looking for you, Bruton. I wanted to tell you that I thoroughly understand now what your feelings must have been like the other night.”
“Don’t talk about it,” said my father.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the colonel. “It’s painful, but one knows the worst.”
“No,” said my father, sadly; “unfortunately we do not know the worst.”
“What do you mean? We can soon set to work and rebuild. The ground is clear. We cannot be so badly off as when we first landed.”
“I was thinking,” said my father, in a low voice, “that the enemy has achieved his work for the night, but to-morrow they will continue this horrible destruction, and the next night and the next night, till the palisade and the block-house only remain. Then the worst will come.”