Page:Famous stories from foreign countries.djvu/120

 triumphant flame-banners, and scattered the fragments’ over the forest land. There was a monotonous and uncanny moaning in the heavens, and a marvelous, unnatural light flung far and wide over all the darkly wooded country.

Exhausted and helpless, the workmen rested; the women carried their belongings out of their cottages without knowing what to do with them.

In the deep valleys there was peace and quiet. There one heard only the whispering of the tall pine trees. But the night sky was rose-colored, and occasionally a fire-dragon sped overhead. Sometimes twittering birds came, and homeless animals. The deer came up to the dwellings of men.

“Our fate will be that of the deer,” complained the old women. “There is no hope of saving the forest now. It will all be burned! Oh! Holy Savior—this is the Last Judgment.”

For days the conflagration lasted.

From our house—high among the woodlands—we could look down upon the trees of the Filnbaum Forest, and watch the flames climb up. The land was covered with a sad veil, and smoke choked us. Above, in the sky, hung a huge, tragic, red wheel which the smoke whirled about but could not destroy. That was the sun. We watched the flames draw nearer and nearer to us. They swept over the heights, down into the valleys, and at length climbed the hillside toward our house. We needed no burning pine cones in the evenings, we had light enough, because ten minutes walk from our door the beautiful forest was flaming.