"I tell you what it is, my boy, the heat was terrific, and the sight
was more so. The river was not more than a hundred yards away, but
between us and it there lay what seemed as bad as the burning fiery
furnace of Messrs. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If I were now
standing there, I don't think I could face it. But then I was with the
girl; I had to save her. Fire was behind us, racing after us; water
lay in front. Once there and we were safe. It was not a time to dawdle
or hesitate, I can assure you.

"'Now,' said I, 'run for your life!'

"Grasping her hand more firmly, I started off with her at the full
run. The place was terrible, and grew worse at every step. The road
here was about fifty feet wide. On each side was the burning forest,
with a row of burned trees like fiery columns, and the moss and
underbrush still glowing beneath. To pass through that was a thing
that it don't do to look back upon. The air was intolerable. I wrapped
my coat tighter over my head; my arms were thus exposed, and I felt
the heat on my hands. But that was nothing to the torments that I
endured from trying to breathe. Besides this, the enormous effort of
keeping up a run made breathing all the more difficult. A feeling of
despair came over me. Already we had gone half the distance, but at
that moment the space seemed lengthened out interminably, and I looked
in horror at the rest of the way, with a feeling of the utter
impossibility of traversing it."

[Illustration: THE FIERY TRIAL.]

"Suddenly the lady fell headlong. I stopped and raised her up. My coat
fell off; I felt the fiery air all round my face and head. I called