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She seemed, the look-out reported, to have been on fire, as well as having lost her mast, for he could plainly make out through his telescope the black patches where her deck and bulwarks had been charred.
He followed the tracks to the edge of the creek. After that he resumed his wandering, and also his hunt for food. For two hours he did not find a crayfish. Then he came out of the green timber into the edge of a burned-over country. Here everything was black. The stumps of the trees stood up like huge charred canes.
Spruce and balsam grew thick about him, shutting out what was left of the wind. Here Scottie Deane had stopped to build a fire. Close to the charred embers was a mass of balsam boughs on which Isobel had rested. Scottie had made a pot of boiling tea and had afterward thrown the grounds on the snow.
In five minutes Cæsar was clawing his way up over the boulder-strewn slopes of the hill, and Joan knew that, for the time at least, they were safe. She knew, too, if the rain held for a couple of hours, the blazing woods would be left a cold waste of charred wreckage. But the rain did not hold. It lasted something less than a quarter of an hour.
They turned in the direction of the fishing village, where Geoffrey and Yaé had walked together only a few hours ago. But the fires were quenched. Black circles of charred ashes remained; and the magic world of the moonlight had become a cluster of sordid hovels, where dirty women were sweeping their frowsty floors, and scrofulous children were playing among stale bedding.
As the last charred pages shall crackle and slowly sink into the red embers, perhaps the spell may be broken, and I may possess once more my long-lost liberty, my vanished genius.
The boys looked back at the path over which they had come, and although the joy of escape was still upon them it was with real grief that they beheld the stricken forest, lately so grand a sight. It was now but a desolate and blackened ruin. Here and there charred trunks stood like the chimneys of burned houses, and others lay upon the ground like fallen and smoking rafters.
Now when Arthur drew near to the summit of the mount, he beheld the giant crouched above his fire. He broiled a hog within the flame upon a spit. Part of the flesh he had eaten already, and part of the meat was charred and burning in the fire. He was the more hideous to see because his beard and hair were foul with blood and coal.
"I don't believe it would be worth while to try it. Still, I can save it. Here, I'll sweep the stuff into a box, and if we get a chance we can try to patch it together," and finding a broken box in what had been the factory office the young inventor managed to get into it the charred remains of the papers.
No one was there; the third sparrow, seeing this, flew still farther into the room, exclaiming, "All or nothing! It is a curious man's nest all the same; and what have they put up here? What is it?" Close to the sparrows the roses were blooming; they were reflected in the water, and the charred beams leaned against the overhanging chimney. "Do tell me what this is.
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