The fire in the trees, of which these swift, silent runners in the grass were fore-warners, was still some distance off. But they could hear the crash of falling trees, the rush and roar of the flames in the tangled leafage, shrill cries of the wild creatures of the bush, the blare and bellowing screams of cattle.
Mrs. Cameron's light skirt caught fire. Jenny beat it out with her hands. She and Mrs. Cameron fell back a moment.
The glare lighted the whole of the clearing. In the valley flashing shafts of flame could be seen. They leapt athwart clouds of smoke which drove, billowing, across the sky, sprayed by showers of sparks.
"Mrs. Cameron!" Deirdre screamed warningly as a fire-maddened steer leapt into the paddock and careered across it into the darkness on the other side.
The heat was suffocating. The heavy, acrid smoke in their lungs made their heads reel. Deirdre was fighting a brilliant patch of flames half-way across the paddock when Mrs. Cameron called to her.
"It's no good, child!" she said. Her face was dim with smoke, her hands burnt and blackened. "It's no good trying to do any more, we must go now."
They ran from the hill-top to the house, Mrs. Cameron caught up her bundle, Jenny, the blue vases and the spinning wheel, and Deirdre, taking Socks from the stable in which he was beginning to whinny with fear, led him down the track in front of the house. They were half way across the clearing when Mrs. Cameron came to a standstill. Flames had eaten their way up the paddock and lay across the track.
"We're cut off," she said.
"What can we do?" Deirdre asked. "There's no time to lose."
Jenny screamed, dancing up and down, beside herself with terror and excitement: "We're cut off! Cut off!"