Men were working under difficulties but to good purpose, for the guide was directing the work of covering roofs with wet blankets, which were wet down as fast as water could be brought. The smoke grew more dense, more suffocating with the moments, and, somewhere off to the south, a roar like that of an approaching storm was plainly heard. Ham White, hearing, understood.
“Look! Oh, look!” cried Nora Wingate.
Great tongues of flame were seen leaping into the air high above the tree-tops of the forest. Sparks and burning embers were now falling in the village streets. Overhead the air itself seemed to be on fire. Sheets of flame were curling and rolling through the forest like breakers on a reef. At one moment the sky would be lighted up brilliantly, and in the next deep, impenetrable darkness covered all.
The terror of the villagers increased, and the Overland girls, on their way to and fro for water, did what they could to calm the women, but without great success. To add to the terror and the peril, the village was now surrounded with fire on three sides. It seemed to be growing more threatening with the moments, and the clouds of soot became denser.
“Oh, how terrible!” cried Nora to Grace Harlowe.
“Yes, but one of the most tremendous spectacles I have ever seen,” answered Grace, whose face, like all others about her, was so black as to be almost unrecognizable.
In all the excitement, however, the two girls found time to observe and marvel. They saw streamers of fire appear to die out, and then charge forward toward the village at race-horse speed, threatening to envelop and devour it.
The villagers started to run as their panic increased.
“Stay where you are! You are safer here!” Ham White shouted in warning to all.
Houses were now catching fire, despite all efforts, and men worked in a frenzy, for, if the fire once got a good start in the village, they now knew that it would be destroyed. Some of the cooler heads among the women lent much assistance to the Overlanders, but most of them were too terrified to give any assistance at all.