only half dead; together with a strange impatience to know the
worst and endure the worst. She had drawn back a little from
the window, driven in by the scorching air, but looked out
still with both hands up to shield her eyes. She did not know
into what pitiful lines her mouth had shaped itself, nor what
faintness and sickness were creeping over her with every
breath of that smoke. The time was, after all, not long; but
in the thickest of the fire, when the smoke literally choked
up the way before the horses' eyes, the animals suddenly
stopped; from a furious speed, the coach came to a blank
stand-still. A voice was heard from the coach-box cheering the
horses--but the dead pause continued. And now when the rattle
of the wheels ceased, the sweep of the fiery storm could be
heard and felt. A wind had risen, or more likely was created
by the great draught of the fire; and its rush through the
woods, driving the flames before it, and catching up the
clouds of smoke to pile them upon the faces and throats of the
travellers was with a hiss and a fury and a blinding which
came like the malice of a spiteful thing. It was almost
impossible to breathe; and yet the coach stood still! A half-
minute seemed the growth of a year. The women became frantic;
Mr. Falkirk kept them in the coach by the sheer exertion of
force. Wych Hazel in vain strained her eyes to see through the
smoke what the detaining cause was.

The horses had been scared at last by the fire crackling and
snapping in their faces, and confounded by the clouds of
smoke. Bewildered, they had stopped short; and voice and whip
were powerless against fear. That was a moment never to be
forgotten, at least by those withinside the stage-coach, who