Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1898-03-16

The girl beside me was pale, but
her lips were firmly set and her eyes
burned with q lustrous, determined
light. She would not finch, I saw.
She came of stern stuff, this tender
young girl, and the fierce, stubborn
spirit of her Dutch ancestry was stand
ing her now in good stead. [ knew
Tess would not faint or scream or do
ANYTHING foolish or wild, but would
be q comrade to me in our danger,
with courage equal, if not superior,
to my own.
On came the fire. Itwas now with
in half q mile of us and roaring like a
wild beast in sight of his prey. A
great cloud of smoke and cinders pre-,
ceded the flames and blew right in our
faces, making our eyes smart so that
we could scarcely see, and griming
and peppering our flesh till it felt raw.
A flock of teal-great big, beautiful
fellows-swept over us, flying toward
the lake, uttering loud, discordant
cries. Now and then one of the num-
Der would fall to the ground, it
wings, perhaps, singed by the flames
over which it had passed. -Four
beautiful deer, q massive stag with
magnificent antlers and three soft-eyed
does, came at full bound from the
covert to the left of the road, the buck
leading in q frightened run and the
females following with that startled,
almost human, look in their large
ewes that one notices in animals at
bay. A long, glossy black snake
writhed its swift way through the un-
derbrush, across the road and was
lost to view in an instant. I scarcely
knew how managed to see all these
minor features in the play which after
wards came so near being tragedy,
but every little thing is indelibly i'm
pressed upon my mind, even to this
hour.
Our old horse was now fully alive
to the danger we werein. He trembled
and shook in every limb and drew the
rickety old vehicle along ct rate it
had never gone before. I held the
reins and spoke encouraging words to
him, and tried to comfort the brave
girl at my side. Tess was trying to
keep the cinders off us with a little
silk parasol-one of my gifts to her
but soon there were SO many holes
burned in that dainty relic of civiliza-
ton that it became veritable colan-
der, through which poured red-hot
binding flood of sparks and smoke. A
great kissing. cracking cinder lighted
on her Tam-o'- -Shanter and that soon
was SO near blaze that I pitched it
of and threw it away. Tess looked
like m angry goddess. Her long brown
hair had escaped from its fastenings
and swept out behind in the wind our
passage created. AS she held the
reins while warded off q great blaz-
ing fir bough that came hurting down
upon us, with her eyes sparkling with
excitement, her face pale as ashes,
and her lips set, she looked like an
other, Queen Boadicea driving her
chariot of wrath over4ihn n-,aeelse=efh ha'.- .s,
proud Roman 1nsulters. Even IN
those moments of agony I wondered
how she kept up so marvelously.
We were now about half way home
and almost in the belt of fame. Things
might now get better, and if we could
hold ont for another half hour there
was o chance of our getting off with
our lives. I tried to speak, but my
throat was so parched that 1 could not
utter q sound.
The heat was frightful. Clouds of
dense white smoke settled about us
in suffocating closeness, while the
thunder of the falling giants of the
forest, together with .the sharp fusil-
lade produced by their swapping
branches and the ever-increasing roar
of the flames, made up grand and
awful diapason. And the fire came
closer and closer-and fnally-it
reached lis.
"Tess" shouted, as I put my arm
about her waist and drew her down
below the sides of the crazy old ye-
hicle, "Dear girl, our time has come!
Good-5ye!"
HDsar Ben, good-bye!" 1 read,
rather than heard from her lips. 1t
was impossible to hear her words.
And after. that, as the novelists say,
all was like dream. I have con-
fused recollection of heat so terrible
as to almost force my eyes from their
sockets and shrivel my skin up to
parchment-of the old horse dropping
to the ground-of standing over my
brave Tess fighting off the blazing
branches-of agonizing burns on my
head, face and hands! And then there
came o terrible crash I seemed to
see ten thousand. stars and all was
darkness!
Inever knew just how long was
unconscious, but it must have been
for many hours, for when conscious
ness again mounted her throne in my
soul it was broad day. At first I
could not open my eyes at all. Then
I managed to Just separate the lids,
but it was the acutest torment to do
so. I afterwards found that they had
been horribly burned.
Full sensibility came back very
slowly. For awhile I was dazed. I
could not think-only gaze upward
stupidity at the clear sky and wonder
what lad happened. Soon, however,
it all came back-all the horror and
pain-and-I attempted to start up.
"My God! Tess!' I groaned, as L
realized fully where I was and what
had transpired. But I found I was
too weak to do anything except barely
move my head.
When I could see about m what a
desolate scene it was That met my
blurred and crippled vision. AS far
as my poor sight could reach there
was nothing but blackness, except
overhead--a landscape in jet silhout-
ted sharply against the soft azure of