Not only would the fire come south of the lake and the Chain––but they themselves could not get near the lake.
Water! There it lay, below them, at their feet almost! And they could not reach it! The fire was marching in a swift, widening line between them and the lake. Not so much as a little finger might they wet in the lake.
Men lay down and wept, or cursed, or gritted 147 silent teeth, according to the nature that was in each.
Jeffrey Whiting stood up, looking towards the lake. He saw two men pushing a boat into the lake. Through the shifting curtain of smoke and waving fire he studied them out of blistered eyes. They were not men of the hills.
They were!––They were the real enemy!––They were two of those who had set the fire! They had not stopped to fight fire. They had headed straight for the lake and had gotten there. They were safe. And they had water!
All the hot rage of the morning, seared into him by the fighting fire fury of the day, rushed back upon him.
He had not killed a man this morning. Men said he had, but he had not.
Now he would kill. The fire should not stop him. He would kill those two there in the water. In the water!
He ran madly down the slope and into the flaming, fuming maw of the fire. He went blind. His foot struck a root. He fell heavily forward, his face buried in a patch of bare earth.
Men ran to the edge of the fire and dragged him out by the feet. When they had brought him back to safety and had fanned breath into him with their hate, he opened bleared eyes and looked at them. As he understood, he turned on his face moaning: