Abstractedly it had sublimity, but
now it was associated with nothing in my mind but blood and terror. It
was not, however, without a purpose that the Captain and his gang stood
to contemplate its effect. "Boys," said he, "we had betther be sartin
that all's safe; who knows but there might be some of the sarpents
crouchin' under a hape o' rubbish, to come out an' gibbet us to-morrow
or next day: we had betther wait a while, anyhow, if it was only to see
the blaze."
Just then the flames rose majestically to a surprising height. Our eyes
followed their direction; and we perceived, for the first time, that
the dark clouds above, together with the intermediate air, appeared
to reflect back, or rather to have caught the red hue of the fire. The
hills and country about us appeared with an alarming distinctness; but
the most picturesque part of it was the effect of reflection of the
blaze on the floods that spread over the surrounding plains. These, in
fact, appeared to be one broad mass of liquid copper, for the motion of
the breaking-waters caught from the blaze of the high waving column,
as reflected in them, a glaring light, which eddied, and rose, and
fluctuated, as if the flood itself had been a lake of molten fire.
Fire, however, destroys rapidly. In a short time the flames sank--became
weak and flickering--by and by, they shot out only in fits--the
crackling of the timbers died away--the surrounding darkness
deepened--and, ere long, the faint light was overpowered by the thick
volumes of smoke that rose from the ruins of the house and its murdered
inhabitants.
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