The smoke was pouring through the hatchway, the black voluminous folds
being rendered visible by the glow of the flames beneath, which now had
gained the ascendency, and set all the winds at defiance. Indeed it was
so now that whatever wind came only assisted the flames, and Brandon, as
he looked on, amused himself with the thought that the wind was like the
world of man, which, when any one is first struggling, has a tendency to
crush him, but when he has once gained a foothold exerts all its efforts
to help him along. In this mood, half cynical, half imaginative, he
watched the progress of the flames.

Soon all the fine kindling had crumbled away at the touch of the fire,
and communicating its own heat to the wood around, it sank down, a
glowing mass, the foundation of the rising fires.

Here, from this central heart of fire, the flames rushed on upon the
wood which lay loosely on all sides, filling the hull. Through that wood
the dry hot wind had streamed for many weeks, till every stave and every
board had become dry to its utmost possibility. Now at the first breath
of the flame the wood yielded; at the first touch it flared up, and
prepared to receive the embrace of the fire in every fibre of its being.

The flame rolled on. It threw its long arms through the million
interstices of the loose piles of wood, it penetrated every where with
its subtle, far-reaching power, till within the ship the glow broadened
and widened, the central heart of fire enlarged its borders, and the
floods of flame that flowed from it rushed with consuming fury through
the whole body of the ship.

Glowing with bright lustre, increasing in that brightness every moment,
leaping up as it consumed and flashing vividly as it leaped up. A