The boy was cruelly perplexed. He remembered vaguely hearing that fever should be starved; that the thing craved was the dangerous thing; and he moved away in a sort of compunctious terror.
"More—more! Oh, in the name of God, more!"
The words came gaspingly. Dick thought of the death-rattle he had heard in Acredale when old man Nagle, the madman, died. He dared not give more water, but he gathered leaves from the aromatic bushes and pressed them to the fevered lips. Before he could withdraw them, the eager jaws closed upon the balsamic shrub. They answered the purpose better than the most scientific remedy in the pharmacopoeia, for the patient called for no further drink, and presently fell into profound and undisturbed sleep. Again the boy was alone with the daunting forces of the dark in its grimmest and most terrifying mood. Alone! No; his mind was now taken from all thought of self. He was with a fellow-townsman. The man had mentioned Boone; had referred to deeds that he had heard all his life associated with the father he had never seen. A wild thought flashed upon him. Was the collapsed body at his feet his father's? He could not see any resemblance in the dark, handsome face to the portrait at home, though all through the flight from Richmond something in the man's manner had seemed like a memory. He strove to recall the image his young mind had cherished, the personality he had heard whispered about in the gossiping groups of Acredale. This was not the gay, the brilliant, the fascinating bon viveur who had been the life of society from Warchester to Bucephalo, from Pentica to New York. Ah! what were the mystic terrors of the night, what the oppressive surroundings of this charnel-house of Nature, to the awful spectacle of this unmanned mind, this delirious echo of past guilt, past cowardice, past shame?
To lessen the somber gloom, Dick had lighted many torches and set them about the high mound where the sleeper lay in a huddle. Taking little heed of where he set them, some of them, as the wind arose, flared out until their flames licked the decayed branches of the fallen white oak. As the boy crouched, pensive and distraught, he was suddenly aroused by a vivacious cracking. He looked up. Lines of fire were darting thither and yon, where dry wood, the débris of years of decay, had been caught in the thick clumps of underbrush and among the limbs of the trees. The fire had pushed briskly, and the uncanny glade was now an amphitheatre of crawling flames, stretching in many-colored banners in a vast circle about the point of refuge. Dick gazed fascinated, with no thought of danger. His spirits rose. It was something like life—this gorgeous decoration of fire. How beautiful it was! How it brought out the shining lines of the white oak, the glistening green of the cypress! Why hadn't he thought of this before? Then, as the curling waves of fire pushed farther and farther up the steins of the trees, and farther and farther endlessly into the undergrowth, an unearthly outcry and stir began. Birds, blinded by the light, whirred and fluttered into the open space above the water, falling helplessly so near Dick that he could have caught and killed a score to surprise Jack with a game breakfast, when he returned. Then—ugh!—horror!—great, coiling masses detached themselves from the tufts of sward, and splashed noisily into the putrid water, wriggling and convulsed. The invalid still slept—but, dreadful sight! the coiling monsters, upheaving themselves from the water, glided, dull eyed and sluggish, upon the mossy island, about the unconscious figure.
Dick, fascinated and inert, watched the snaky mass, squirming in hideous folds almost on the recumbent body. Then, aroused to the horror of their nearness, he seized a torch and made at the slimy heap. The fire conquered them. They slid off the ground, with forked tongues darting out in impotent malice. But others, squirming through the water, wriggled up; and the boy, maddened by the danger, stood his ground, torch in hand, defending the sleeper.
But now the fire had widened its path, and is enveloping the tiny island. The serpents, hedged in from the outer line, uproar in blood-curdling masses, their dull eyes gleaming, and their tongues phosphorescent, darting out in their agony. Dick doesn't mind them now, for he has, for the first time, begun to realize that his illumination has destruction as the sequel of its delight. Great clouds of smoke settle a moment on the water and then rise, impelled by the cold surface. Even the green verdure begins to roll back where the crackling flames play into the more compact wall of incombustible timber. The sleeper murmurs in his dreams. Dick casts about despairingly. He hears the horses—they have broken their tethers—he can hear them whinnying, upbraidingly, far off. Wherever he casts his eye, volumes of fire dart and sway, always coming inward, first scorching the green limbs, then fastening on the tender stems and turning them to glowing lines of cordage; only the great sheet of water, inky, terrible, and threatening a few hours before, protects him and his charge. The hissing snakes have sunk into it.
Bevies of birds, supernaturally keen of sight, have dropped upon the twigs that lie on the glittering bosom of the water. Dick, in all the agonized uncertainty of that night of peril, thinks with wonder on the mysterious resources Nature provides its helpless outcasts. The hideous shallows, black, glistening, are now a belt of safety, not only for himself and the sleeper, but a refuge for all manner of whirring birds and crawling things, intimidated and harmless in the stifling breath of the fire. The flame, leaping from sedge to sedge, from trunk to trunk, seems to seek, with a human instinct, and more than human pertinacity, food for its ravening hunger; far upward, where festoons of moss hung from the sycamores in the day, airy banners of starry sparks, swayed, coiled, and flamed among the branches. But Dick was soon reminded that the scene was not for enjoyment, however fantastically fascinating.
The smoke, at first rising from the burning brakes, lodged among the tree-tops; then, meeting the humid night-air in the matted leaves, descended slowly. Dick found himself nearly smothered when he had partly recovered from the spell-bound wonder of the demoniac fête. The ground under his feet felt gratefully cool. He bent down, and shudderingly laved his burning face in the inky water. The sick man had slept more peacefully during the last half-hour. He no longer breathed in gasping efforts; his sleep was unbroken by muttering or outcry. But now he must be aroused. He must be taken out of the circle of fire, for, sooner or later, the curling waves would lick downward from the dry vines above and scorch the mound. How to get away? The horses were long since gone. They might be miles from the spot! Dick touched the sleeping man, filled with a new suspense. He breathed so softly, or did he breathe at all?
"For God's sake, Mr. Jones, wake up! We must go from here; the swamp is burning!"
"Eh—who is it? Where am I? Was—I dreaming? I thought my boy was with me, and we were in the old home at Acredale."