CHAPTER XXXIV
THE EYES OF THE HILLS
The thunder roared without intermission. It rose and fell, that wasall. From a truculent piano it leapt to a titanic crescendo only tofind relief again in a fierce growling dissatisfaction. It seemed lessof an elemental war than a physical attack upon a shuddering earth.The electric fires rifting the darkness of this out-world night werebeyond compare in their terror. The radiance of sunlight might wellhave been less than the blaze of a rush candle before the staggeringbrilliancy. It was wild, wild and fearsome. It was vicious and utterlyterrifying.
Below the quaking earth was in little better case. Only was the scenehere in closer touch with human understanding. Here the terror was ofearth, here disaster was of human making. Here the rack of heart wasin destruction by wanton fire. Shrieking, hissing, crackling, onlyinsignificant by comparison with the war of the greater elements,flames licked up and devoured with ravening appetites the tinder-likestructures of Joan's farm.
The girl was standing in the open. A confined enough open space almostcompletely surrounded by fire. Before her were the blazing farmbuildings, behind her was the raging furnace that once had been herhome. And on one side of her the flames commingled so as to beimpassable. Her head was bowed and her eyes were closed, her handswere pressed tight over her ears in a vain attempt to shut outcognizance of the terror that reigned about and above her. She stoodthus despairing. She was afraid, terribly afraid.
Beside her was her aunt, that strange creature whose brain hadalways risen superior to the sufferings of the human body. Nowshe was crushed to earth in mute submission to the powers whichoverwhelmed her. She lay huddled upon the ground utterly lost to allconsciousness. Terror had mercifully saved her from a contemplation ofthose things which had inspired it.
These two were alone. The other woman had gone, fled at the firstcoming of that dreaded fiend--fire. And those others, those wretched,besotted creatures whose mischief had brought about this wantondestruction, they too had fled. But their flight was in answer to thewrathful voice of the heavens which they feared and dreaded above allthings in the wild world to which they belonged.
Alone, helpless, almost nerveless, Joan waited that end which she feltcould not long be delayed. She did not know, she could not understand.On every hand was a threat so terrible that in her weakness shebelieved that life could not long last. The din in the heavens, thetorturing heat so fierce and painful. The glare of light whichpenetrated even her closed eyelids, the choking gasps of smoke-laden,scorching air with which she struggled. Death itself must come, norcould it be far from her now.
The wind rushed madly down from the hilltops. It swept over forest andplain, it howled through canyon and crevasse in its eager haste toreach the centre of the battle of elements. It pounced upon theblinding smoke-cloud and swept it from its path and plunged to theheart of the conflagration with a shriek and roar of cruel delight.One breath, like the breath of a tornado, and its boisterous lungshad sent its mischief broadcast in the flash of an eye. With a howl ofdelight it tore out the blazing roof of the house, and, lifting itbodily, hurled it like a molten meteor against the dark walls of theadjacent pine forest.
Joan saw nothing of this, she understood nothing. She was blind anddeaf to every added terror. All she felt, all she understood wasstorm, storm, always storm. Her poor weary brain was reeling, herheart was faint with terror. She was alive, she was conscious, but shemight well have been neither in the paralysis that held her. It meantno more that that avalanche of fire, hurled amidst the resinous woods,had suddenly brought into existence the greatest earthly terror thatcould visit the mountain world; it meant no more to her that an addedroar of wind could create a greater peril; it meant no more to herthat, in a moment, the whole world about her would be in a blaze sothat the burning sacrifice should be complete. Nothing could possiblymean more to her, for she was at the limit of human endurance.
But other eyes, other brains were alive to all these things, eyes andminds trained by a knowledge which only that mountain world couldteach. To them the significance was all absorbing. To them this newterror was a thousandfold more appalling than all other storm andtempest. With the forest afire there was safety for neither human norbeast. With that forest afire flight was well-nigh impossible. Withthat forest afire to save any living creature would be well-nigh amiracle, and miracles had no place in their thoughts.
Yet those eyes, so watchful, remained unchanged. Those strainingbrains only strained the harder. Those eager hearts knew no flinchingfrom their purpose, and if they quailed it was merely at the naturaldread for those whom they were seeking to succor.
Even in face of the added peril their purpose remained. The heavensmight roar their thunders, the lightnings might blind their staringeyes, the howling gale might strew their path with every obstruction,nothing could change them, nothing could stop them but death itself.
So with horses a-lather they swept along. Their blood-stained spurstold their tale of invincible determination. These two men no longersat in their saddles, they were leaning far out of them over theirracing horses' necks, urging them and easing them by every trick in ahorseman's understanding. They were making a trail which soon theyknew would be a path of fire. They knew that with every stride of thestalwart creatures under them they were possibly cutting off the lasthope of a retreat to safety. They knew, none better, that once amidstthat furnace which lay directly ahead it was something worse than aneven chance of life.
Buck wiped the dripping sweat out of his eyes that he might get aclearer view. The blaze of lightning was of no use to him. It onlyhelped to make obscure that which the earthly fires were struggling toreveal. The Padre's horse was abreast of his saddle. The sturdy brutewas leaving Caesar to make the pace while she doggedly pursued.
"We'll make it yet!" shouted Buck, over his shoulder, amidst the roarof thunder.
The Padre made no attempt at response. He deemed it useless.
Buck slashed Caesar's flanks with ruthless force.
The blazing farm was just ahead, as was also the roaring fire of theforest. It was the latter on which both men were concentrating theirattention. For the moment its path lay eastward, away to the right ofthe trail. But this they knew was merely the howling force of thewind. With a shift of direction by half a point and the gale woulddrive it straight down the trail they were on.
The trail bent away to the left. And as they swung past the turn Buckagain shouted.
"Now for it!"
He dashed his spurs again at the flanks of his horse, and the greatbeast stretched out for a final burst across the bridge over thenarrow creek.
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