"Boys," said Mr. Lane, "let us finish this here work as soon as we can. Pile them there barrels together to burn, and put shavings under that there wood; we'll set fire to 'em and leave this here place for good."
The boys began their work without answering a word. Scattered here and there were a number of large barrels in which the mash was prepared; these were rolled together in a heap. Along one side of the cave, and extending its entire length, was a pile of many cords of wood. Most of it was well seasoned poplar, with its thin, ragged bark hanging down on all sides. While Martin set fire to the barrels, Owen applied a brand to the dry bark. It burned like tissue paper; it hissed and sparkled, and sent up puffs of unsteady smoke which wrought strange shadows on the sides of the cave, and made the myriads of water-drops overhead tremble and glitter.
Soon the pile of wood began to burn, and as the fire grew brighter and brighter, it leaped to the top of the damp stone arches, tossed and flared and scattered showers of whirling sparks. The men and boys were dazzled by the sudden and brilliant flame. Huge columns of pitchy smoke rose up from the glowing mass. The heat became intense; so intense that Mr. Lane cut the ropes which bound the prisoners and led them to the outer section of the cave; but he kept close to them, pistol in hand.
Two passages which led farther beneath the ground offered a natural flue through which the flame roared with the fury of a whirlwind. Stored away on heavy beams within these deep recesses of the cave were hundreds of barrels of whisky, the output of three years. The barrels caught fire; the heavy beams caught fire; the whisky poured out in streams and fed the raging element. Smoke and flame found their way through a thousand crevices and rifts until the whole hillside appeared to be ablaze. The glare through the rock door which stood ajar lit up the surrounding trees; while far below the glimmering river seemed a stream of blood.
The men and boys stood without, shading their faces from the heat and light, viewing the terrible and destructive scene. Old Bowen the while peered through the open door into one corner of the cave where a few pieces of wood lay half buried in the damp earth. The flames could not reach this wood, but the surrounding heat was gradually drying it. It began to smoke, then suddenly burst into a flame. At the same instant Louis Bowen shrieked: "Powder! powder!" he cried, as he sought in vain to free himself from Mr. Lane's grasp. "A barrel of it! The fire is over it! Run, run!"
He had scarcely uttered the last word when the whole hill seemed shaken to its foundation. A part of the stony vault fell with a crash, leaving a spacious chasm through which the pent-up flames burst with a mighty roar and leaped to the very top of the surrounding trees. A fragment of stone struck old Bowen and laid him lifeless at the feet of the sheriff. In the confusion which followed, Simpson darted into the woods and disappeared.
Mr. Lane and the boys fled from the spot to escape the suffocating smoke and flames. To their horror they saw the two giant rocks which had stood as guardian genii at the entrance of the cave start from their foundations and threaten to overwhelm them. For untold ages rain and frost and decay had done their work, and gradually removed the soil from beneath these stony masses, till it needed but the single shock of the explosion to set them in motion. At first they trembled with quick vibrations, then swung to and fro with the regularity of a pendulum, then rasped and jarred, and ground the stones beneath them into atoms, crushed the smaller trees which barred their progress, then on, on they dashed, gathering strength and terror as they went. Lane and the boys sprang aside just as they thundered by. Down, down they crashed; down, down, while the largest oaks and hickories bent as reeds before them, and were shivered into splinters—down, down, while the hills trembled beneath their massive weight and echoed with wild reverberations. At the water's edge they parted. One embedded itself in the mud and sand close to the shore; the other reached the middle of the river and disappeared beneath the water.
In the meanwhile the hill was shaken by another mighty throe—the entire roof of that section of the cave where the fire was raging collapsed and fell. The flame leaped out and lit up the trees and bluffs and river with a ruddy glow, and then was smothered and extinguished as if by magic. The sight was grand, but lasted only for a moment. A few gleams of light from the crevices in the hillside—a slight rumbling noise of the waves against the giant rocks—then all around was left in silence and in darkness.