Fire in the Woods / Illustrated

by James De Mille

He plunged his head beneath the water, and held it under as long as he could. When he raised it again he found himself farther on in the midst of the flaming trees. The heat of the air was intense, yet not so much so as he had feared. His dripping coat hung round his head, protecting him. His course was true, for looking forward he saw that he was still in the very middle of the stream.

One look was sufficient, and then, desiring to prepare himself as much as possible for the worst that the fire might bring against him, he once more plunged his head under.

When he next raised his head, he found the scene somewhat changed. The dazzling flash of leaping, up-springing flames had passed away. He had moved past the advanced line of the fire where the flames were assailing the light twigs and foliage of the trees, and had come to that inner portion where the trees were standing bare of everything that the flame could destroy; skeletons—glowing red in the embrace of consuming fire. The glow was all around—on the ground, on the trees—and the emanation of heat was far more intense. The air was now like that of a room heated to an intense degree; yet, to his immense relief, it was not worse than he had known air to be before; and to him it seemed like the atmosphere of a room overheated on some winter day. He could breathe without difficulty, and thanks to his extemporized hood, and his plunges under water, he did not feel that scorching glow of the hot fires that he might otherwise have felt. Well was it for him that he was spared the necessity of exertion. In that atmosphere any exertion would have overcome him in a very short time. As it was he had only to cling to his float, steer it straight, and from time to time plunge his head under water.

In this way he was borne steadily on, and succeeded in preserving himself from destruction during that first entrance into the avenue of flame. He was now in the avenue of fire, and over this the flood bore him, until at length he reached that bend on the river which he had seen before starting upon this last journey.

The river turned to the right, and swept away for about as great a distance as lay between this bend and the last one. As Phil looked at it in eager and anxious scrutiny, he saw to his dismay that the fire glow covered all the land before him, and on either side. He had been too sanguine, and had not made sufficient allowance for the tenacity of the fire where it once has fixed its grasp. There rose the trees—the skeletons—red—glowing in a fervid glow; and the air was hotter here—more torrid—more stagnant.

Here, then, Phil found a severer trial than any which he had yet experienced; and the sight of these new regions, all glowing in the wide-spread conflagration, showing far and wide the withering signs of fiery devastation, filled him with awe and apprehension. There was nothing, however, which he could do. He could only do as he had been doing, and draw his hood over his face as far as he could without obstructing the view, and guide himself in the right course, and occasionally plunge beneath the waters so as to maintain the protection that was afforded by the moisture and the sheltering hood.

The time seemed long as he thus drifted on; but at length, to his great joy, he reached the next bend in the river, and began slowly to pass around it.

But the joy which he had felt at reaching this place soon passed away, when, on turning the point and entering upon the new course of the river, he beheld before him an unchanged scene of devastation. There, as before, the glowing fire appeared on the ground below and in the trees above; the latter rising all red in the fire, and crumbling slowly beneath its touch. One difference there was; and that was, that in this new scene the conflagration seemed to be farther advanced; giant branches fell to the ground; tall trees toppled over, and the silence that had reigned was now broken by the thunder of those falling masses.

The air here was also hotter; for as the fire had been burning longer, so everything was affected by its long intensity. Now it was that Phil first began to find something approximating to what he had dreaded—a heat which made breathing difficult, and made the air like that at the mouth of a furnace.

Through this he drifted on as before. His soul already began to yield to despondency; while hope grew fainter, and a dark dismay gradually took possession of his heart. How could it end? Would it ever end? Were there any limits to the burning woods? Must he thus go drifting on, and find that every new scene, as it opened up, was worse than its predecessor?