the night the topmost flames leapt again and again fruitlessly at
the stars, like golden dragons chained but struggling. The towers
and domes of the oppressive smoke seemed high and far enough to
drown distant planets in a London fog. But if we exhausted all
frantic similes for that frantic scene, the main impression about
the fire would still be its ranked upstanding rigidity and a sort
of roaring stillness. It was literally a wall of fire.

"Father," cried MacIan, once more, "come out of it and save us
all!" Turnbull was staring at him as he cried.

The tall and steady forest of fire must have been already a
portent visible to the whole circle of land and sea. The red
flush of it lit up the long sides of white ships far out in the
German Ocean, and picked out like piercing rubies the windows in
the villages on the distant heights. If any villagers or sailors
were looking towards it they must have seen a strange sight as
MacIan cried out for the third time.

That forest of fire wavered, and was cloven in the centre; and
then the whole of one half of it leaned one way as a cornfield
leans all one way under the load of the wind. Indeed, it looked
as if a great wind had sprung up and driven the great fire
aslant. Its smoke was no longer sent up to choke the stars, but
was trailed and dragged across county after county like one
dreadful banner of defeat.

But it was not the wind; or, if it was the wind, it was two
winds blowing in opposite directions. For while one half of the
huge fire sloped one way towards the inland heights, the other