“Good heavens!” she cried excitedly, “will he never start?”
As she spoke, a drop of water fell on her face. She looked up, and another and another fell.
On the very frontier of the battleground, midway between the woods that were on fire and those they tried to save, stood a tall maple, its arms outstretched, as if inviting the enemy. Captain Cary was cutting that tree down, swinging the axe rapidly in resounding strokes. A few courageous men still lingered near, working with renewed hope as they felt the scattering drops, and perceived that the wind began to lull. But they gave a cry of alarm, and fled also; for a fiery crest was suddenly lifted above the forest, and the enemy was upon them. No one was left but Captain Cary, and his work was not done. If there was a chance of checking the fire, it was in having that tree down.
It bent slightly under the heavy strokes that smote it, and, as it bent, a long, flickering tongue of flame shot across the space, and curled around its topmost tuft of foliage, and devoured it in a twinkling. Twigs, boughs, branches, all as dry as tinder, kindled instantly, and the whole tree, wrapped in flame, toppled over, and fell.
With a cry of terror, Clara Yorke lifted her face, that she might not see that man perish; and, looking upward, saw the redness vividly threaded with a blinding white light. Then there were a rattle and a rumble, and the rain came down in torrents.
“God be thanked!” said a deep voice near by.
There stood Captain Cary, panting, blackened, scorched, torn, wiping his face on his sleeve, and looking to see how much more effectually fire could be fought by the powers of heaven than by the powers of earth. The flames cowered down from the tree-tops under that tumultuous descent, the brands and cinders died out, hissing, and streams of water pursued the fire that fled along the ground.
“Providence arrived just in time,” observed one of the men who had gathered about him.
The sailor looked at him with a reproving glance. “Providence always does arrive in time,” he said reverently.