“Houp-e-là! We arre de boy! We arre de bes’ scout ev’ry tam’!” he carolled gayly, as he launched his hissing pailfuls at each threatened spot. “Continue cette affaire d’eau—go on wit’ dis watere bizness. We done good work—engh?”
So they were, doing very good work! But the issue was still exceedingly doubtful as to whether, without any proper fire-fighting apparatus, they could hold the flames in check, restricting their destruction to the large shed whose roof toppled in with a resounding crash, and a volcano-like eruption of sparks.
And what of Leon? What of Corporal Chase, alone upon the tallest sand-hill he could pick out, a solitary scout figure remote from his comrades with the dune breeze shrieking round him?
What were his feelings as he shook his two bright signaling lanterns aloft at arm’s length, to attract the attention of the men who kept the distant lighthouse beyond the dunes at the mouth of another tidal river, and then spelled out his message with those flashing luminaries, instead of the ordinary signal-flags: “Fire! Get help! House afire! Get help!” calling assistance out of the black night?
Well! Starrie Chase was conscious of a monster thrill shooting through him to his feet which firmly pressed the sandy soil: breaking up into a hundred little thrills, it made most of the sensations which he had misnamed excitement a year ago seem tame, thin, and unboyish.
He stood there, an isolated, sixteen-year-old boy. But he knew himself a trained force stronger than the “mad-cat” wind that clawed at him, than the tide which moaned behind him, even than the fire he combated; stronger always in the long run than these, for he was growing into a man who could get the better of them ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
He was a scout, in line with the world’s progress, allied with rescue, not ruin, with healing, not harm, with a chivalry that crowned all.
“Fire! Get help!” Thus he kept on signaling at intervals, his left arm extending one flashing lantern at arm’s length, while the companion light was lowered to his knees for the formation of the first letter of the message. And so on, the twin lights held at various angles illumining the youthful signalman until he stood out like a black statue on a pedestal among the lonely dunes.
To Starrie Chase that sand-peak pedestal seemed to grow into a mountain and his uniformed figure to tower with it—become colossal—in the excitement of the moment!
While, not twenty yards distant, behind a smaller sand-hillock, crouched another figure whose half-liberated groan the wind caught and tossed away like a feather as he gazed between clumps of beach-grass at the gesturing form of the scout.