“No, my lad. That tree’s enormous at the bottom, but the boughs grow smaller and smaller till the top is like a point. Look, the fire is reaching it now, and it will go on burning till the trunk stands up half burned down, and then gradually go out, leaving a great pointed stick of charred wood. No fear of its falling either upon us. I should have been sorry for us to have started a forest fire, that might have burned for weeks.”
He ceased speaking, and we all stood gazing in awe at the magnificent spectacle as the flames rushed higher and higher, till from top to bottom there before us was a magnificent cone of roaring fire, which fluttered and scintillated, and sent up golden clouds of tiny sparks far away into the air, while a thin canopy of smoke spread over us, and reflected back the glow till the valley far around looked almost as light as day, and the green pines stood out gilded, though sombre in their shades, and the water flashed and sparkled where it rushed along.
It was a wonderful sight, impressing even Quong, and for a long time no one spoke.
It was Gunson who broke the silence.
“Well, Quong,” he cried, “what do you think of your work?”
“Velly solly,” said the little fellow, dolefully.
“Ah,” said Gunson, “it is a bad job. All the King of China’s horses and men could not build that up again—eh, Gordon?”
“No,” I said, sadly; for there seemed to me to be something pitiful in that grand forest monarch, at whose feet we had supped the past night, being destroyed.
“But one of the seeds out of a cone hidden under the ground will produce another,” he said, “in a hundred or two years. And we shan’t wait to see it, Gordon.”
I looked at him wonderingly.