Page:Ninety-three.djvu/323

 the meantime, the children had at last opened their eyes.

The fire, which had not yet reached the library, threw a rosy glow on the ceiling. The children were not familiar with this kind of a dawn. They looked at it. Georgette contemplated it.

All the splendors of the fire were displayed there; the black hydra and the scarlet dragon appeared in the shapeless smoke, superbly dark and vermilion. Long tongues of flame blew off and lighted up the darkness, and it seemed like a battle of comets running one after another.

A fire is prodigal; the live coals are full of jewels, which are scattered to the winds; it is not without reason that charcoal is identical with the diamond.

In the wall of the third story, cracks opened, through which the embers poured down into the ravine cascades of precious stones; the heaps of straw and oats burning in the granary began to stream through the windows in avalanches of gold dust, the oats became amethysts, and the straws, carbuncles.

"Pretty," said Georgette.

All three had risen.

"Ah!" cried the mother; "they are waking up!"

René-Jean got up, then Gros-Alain got up, then Georgette got up.

René-Jean stretched out his arms, went towards the window and said,—

"I'm warm."

"I warm," repeated Georgette.

The mother called to them.

"My children: René! Alain! Georgette!"

The children looked around them. They tried to find out what it all meant. When men are terrified, children