Penn watched in vain for their coming—in vain for some signal of their safety on the crags above the forest. Had they reached the crags, he thought he might discover them somewhere with a glass, so vividly were those grim rock-foreheads of the hills lighted up beneath the red sky.
He sent Cudjo to find Dan, ran to the cave for Pomp's glass, and returned to the ledge. There he waited; there he watched; still in vain. Wider and wider, spread the destroying sea; fiercer and fiercer leaped the billows of flame—the billows that did not fall again, but broke away in rent sheets, in red-rolling scrolls, and vanished upward in their own smoke.
And now Penn, lowering the glass, perceived what he must long since have been made aware of, had not the greater light concealed the less. It was morning; a dull and sunless dawn; the despairing daylight, filtered of all warmth and color, spreading dim and gray on the misty valleys, and on the sombre, far-off hills, under an interminable canopy of cloud.
Pepperill came clambering up the rocks. Penn turned eagerly to meet and question him.
"Find him?"
"Wal, a piece on him."
"Killed?"
"I reckon he ar that!"
"Who is it?"
"Durned if I kin tell! He's jammed in thar 'twixt two gre't stuns, and the hoss is piled on top, and you can't see nary featur' of his face, only the legs,—but durned if I know the legs!"