[CHAPTER V.]
AN APPALLING VISITOR.
One bright September day, after David Wilde had been gone about a week with his raft, a wood-cutter came to the cabin with bad news. He informed Alice that the woods were on fire two or three miles back, and that the wind was driving the fire in a broad belt of a mile wide directly toward the house; that if the wind did not subside with the setting of the sun, nothing could preserve the place from destruction by the middle of the next day. Alice had been sitting at the window, thinking how delicious that soft, dry wind was, but now she prayed with all her heart that it might speedily die. It was yet many hours to sunset; and she, with Pallas, went into the forest until they could see the fire, and were in some danger from the drifting sparks. The foresters shook their heads and told her to be prepared for the worst; Pallas groaned and prayed as if she had been at a camp-meeting; but Alice, although she trembled before the mighty power of the conflagration, endeavored not to lose her presence of mind.
"I shall hope for the best," she said to the men, "but shall be prepared for the worst. Go to the mill and bring round by the river all the skiffs you can muster—there are two or three, are there not? They will be ready by evening, and if the wind does not change, or go down, by that time, we will try and save the furniture by means of the boats. Come, Pallas, let us go home and pack up the smaller things."
"Home!" The word sounded sweet, when destruction hovered so near; but Alice had a brave heart; she would think of nothing now but of being equal to the emergency; her calmness had a salutary effect upon the characteristic excitability of her sable attendant, who followed her back in quite a composed and serviceable mood.
Moving quietly about, putting her precious books into packages, and getting into movable shape all those little articles of household use which become so dear from association, a looker-on would hardly have guessed how anxiously the young girl waited for sunset—how earnestly she wished that her father had been at home.
"My! my! dat nigger of mine is a wusser fool 'an ever," said Pallas, as she bustled about like an embodied storm; "jes' see him, Miss Alice; he's went and put on his bes' clo'es, and dar' he stands, nebber doin' a single ting, but jes' holding dem new boots of his."
"What are you dressed up for, Saturn," called Alice, laughing, in spite of her anxiety, to find that he had made provision for that which was dearest to him—his new suit would be saved if he was, and if he perished, it would share his fate.
"Oh, missus," he replied, looking foolish, "it's the easiest way to carry 'em."