A Voyage round the World / A book for boys

by William Henry Giles Kingston

A current of cool air was passing over the face of the rock, I conclude, for, to my no small satisfaction, I discovered that I was alive, and could very speedily sit up. The spectacle which met my sight, however, was terrific in the extreme. Far as the eye could reach, the whole country was in a blaze, the flames crackling and hissing as they fiercely attacked clump after clump of the tall tussac grass, while the ground over which they had passed was charred and blackened, the globular masses of the bog balsam glowing with fervent heat. The flames also still burned brightly close round us, and I saw no means by which we could escape from our position. As soon as I had collected my thoughts, I remembered my companion. I found a few drops of spirits and water in our flask. I poured them down his throat. He looked up.

“What! am I still alive?” he muttered faintly. “Oh, the bulls and the fire! what’s going to happen next?”

“That is more than I can tell you exactly,” I answered; “but I suppose, in time, the fire will burn itself out, and then we may get away from this. Let us watch it meantime. It is worth looking at.”

In a short time, after a few sighs, Jerry lifted up his head from the ground, and sat up. The sight at which we gazed was especially grand when a fresh puff of wind sent the flames rolling along, and throwing up forked flashes, as they found new fuel to feed on. All the beasts it had encountered had, of course, fled, terror inspired, before it; but numberless young birds must have been destroyed, and we saw hundreds of their parents hovering over the spot where their nests had been, in the vain effort to save their offspring. Some we saw fall into the flames, either from having their wings singed from approaching too near, or by being suffocated with the smoke. When we saw the effects of the fire, we were doubly thankful that we had not attempted to make our way across the island. Once surrounded by that fiery furnace, we must have been, to a certainty, burned to death. Suddenly a dreadful thought occurred to me.

“Jerry,” I exclaimed, “where can our friends be all this time? Is it possible that they can have been among the grass, and that the fire may have caught them up? Good Cousin Silas, and Mr Burkett, and jolly Mr Kilby. Poor fellows! we may be much better off than they are.”

“Oh, don’t talk about it,” said Jerry, shuddering; “it is too dreadful. I hope—I hope they will have got into a place of safety. Poor fellows! and it was all my doing. Do you know, Harry, I think we ought to pray for them. They may be requiring aid which no mortal man can give them.”

“Yes, indeed,” said I; “we ought—let us.” And together we knelt down on the hard rock, surrounded by the roaring flames, the thick black smoke curling around us, and sometimes almost suffocating us; and most earnestly did we offer up our prayers for the safety of our friends and for our own; and most thankful did we feel that we had been preserved from the dangers into which we had been thrown. I pity the person who is ashamed to acknowledge that he prays for protection both for himself and those he cares for. How should we go through the world without the protection of an all-merciful God? Often and often I have had proof of how utterly unable we are to take care of ourselves. Among the many blessings and advantages I have enjoyed is that of having had parents who taught me to pray, and not to be ashamed of praying. At school, when some poor, weak, foolish boys were afraid to kneel down by their bedsides to say their prayers, my brothers and I always persevered in the practice; and very soon we put to shame those who tried to interrupt us—and not only we ourselves, but other boys who did the same, were from that time never interfered with. Sure I am that our prayers were heard, and that the blessings we prayed for in earnestness and simplicity were given us. When we rose from our knees we found our courage much increased. The occasion had made us serious, and reminded us of our duties. I wish that it had been always so, that it were still always so; but even now as I write, I feel how much day after day I have left undone of what I ought to have done. Is it not so with all of us? Then what necessity is there for prayer for strength from above to enable us to do our duty. I say again, don’t be ashamed. Pray always; and if it is for your good, what you ask with faith God will most assuredly give you. He has said it, and his promises never fail.

Night was now approaching, but we could yet see no prospect of our escaping from our present position. The darkness, as it came on, served to brighten the effect of the fire; and as we gazed round on every side, as far as the eye could reach, we could see only the bright glare of the conflagration as it went on widening its circle round us. Now and then, as it reached spots more thickly covered with clumps of tussac grass, we could see the flames rushing upwards in pyramids of fire; but in other places a dense fierce glow could alone be perceived as the fiery wave receded from us. The sight we beheld was certainly a very grand one, and not easily to be forgotten; but our position was far from pleasant, and we would thankfully have found ourselves on board the schooner, or even in the boat under shelter of a sail. Our clothes were scorched, and so were our hands and feet; we were getting very hungry, and no fuel remained to enable us to cook our provisions, while now that the fire was removed from us the sharp wind made us feel very cold. When we considered the small area of the rock which had been at one time like an island amid the fiery ocean, we had more reason than ever to be thankful that we had escaped destruction. On further examination of the locality we discovered that the proximate cause of our escape was owing to the position of the rock near a piece of water, the extent of which we perceived when the fire in our neighbourhood had burned itself out. A narrow belt of grass only intervened between the rock and the water, the rest of the ground being a marsh covered with moist rushes, which did not burn. As the wind had for the greater part of the time blown over the pond, we were thus saved from suffocation. Had the rock been thickly surrounded by high grass, I think that we must have been burned to death; for, blown by the wind, the flames would have reached the very centre of the rock where we lay; and had we not been roasted, we should have been suffocated by the smoke. We crouched down on the rock, and sat for some time without speaking, watching the progress of the flames. The ground around us was still glowing with the remains of the fire. How long we had sat silent I do not know, when Jerry exclaimed, with animation—

“I say, Harry, why shouldn’t we have a steak off our old friend the bull? He must be pretty well done through by this time.”

“We will try him at all events,” said I; and descending the rock, we very soon had some fine slices of beef out of him. Finding that the ground was sufficiently cooled to allow our walking on it without burning our shoes, we advanced with our steaks stuck at the end of our ramrods to a glowing heap of bog balsam. Kicking it up with our feet, it soon sent forth a heat amply sufficient to cook our already half-roasted steaks. When they were done, collecting our guns, and bags, and game, we sat down on the lee side of the rock, and speedily silenced the cravings of hunger. We should have been glad of something to drink, but we were not yet sufficiently thirsty to induce us to get water from the pond. We felt very tired after all the exercise we had taken, and the excitement we had gone through during the day; but we were afraid to go to sleep lest the bulls should wander back, or something else happen we knew not what; besides, the anxiety about our friends kept us awake. At last, however, as we sat shoulder to shoulder under the rock, sleep stole imperceptibly on us, and I do not think that I ever enjoyed a sounder slumber than I did that night. When we awoke we rubbed our eyes, not knowing where we were. It was broad daylight. We rose to our feet, and after stretching our cramped limbs, we climbed to the top of the rock to look about us. The fire still raged over part of the island, which was enveloped in thick wreaths of black smoke; but to the west we caught sight of the blue sea, sparkling brightly in the sunshine, the intervening space being free from flames, though presenting a surface of black ashes, not a blade of grass apparently having escaped the conflagration. We thought, too, that we recognised a point round which the schooner had come just before dropping us in the boat. This encouraged us to hope that we might not be very far-distant from the place where we had landed. Without waiting, therefore, for breakfast, we determined at once to set off.