Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/135

 volcano heaved its fiery flood. Far from land showers of ashes fell upon the decks of approaching ships.

Though not without expectation of a larger bushfire than usual, we were chiefly unprepared as the flame-wave rolled in over grass and forest from the north. The fire travelled fast on the preceding night, and the north-east wind rising to a gale towards midday, the march of the Destroyer waxed resistless and overpowering. Mr. Chamberlain told us afterwards that, feeling indisposed for exertion, and unaware of actual danger, he was lying down reading Vanity Fair. So enthralled was he by Becky Sharp's fascinations that he delayed going out to reconnoitre, though uneasily conscious that the smoke-clouds were thickening.

He went at length on foot. Then he saw, to his astonishment, a wall of fire approaching the homestead with appalling rapidity. He turned and fled for his life, but had barely time to warn the station hands when the devouring element swept after. It was idle to resist in any ordinary method. The flames seemed to leap from the tree tops, as they scaled the trunks, then the higher branches, and were borne on loose fragments of bark far ahead of the line of fire.

In a quarter of an hour each fence, building, and shed of a well-improved homestead was in flames. So great was the heat that after the first flight of the inmates from the dwelling-house, it was impossible to re-enter. Nothing of the contents was saved but a desk and a picture, while the household stood awe-stricken in a plot of garden vegetation, moistening their parched lips from time to time, suffocating