While the men assembled round the prostrate form of Mr Mason were attempting to rescue him from his state of stupor, poor Corrie began to shew symptoms of returning vitality. A can of water, poured over him by Henry, did much to restore him. But no sooner was he enabled to understand what was going on, and to recall what had happened, than he sprang up with a wild cry of despair, and rushed towards the blazing house. Again Henry’s quick arm arrested a friend in his mad career.

 

“Oh! she’s there! Alice is there!” shrieked the boy, as he struggled passionately to free himself.

 

“You can do nothing, Corrie,” said Henry, trying to soothe him.

 

“Coward!” gasped the boy in a paroxysm of rage, as he clenched his fist and struck his captor on the chest with all his force.

 

“Hold him,” said Henry, turning to John Bumpus, who at that moment came up.

 

Bumpus nodded intelligently, and seized the boy, who uttered a groan of anguish as he ceased a struggle which he felt was hopeless in such an iron gripe.

 

“Now, friends—all of you,” shouted Henry, the moment he was relieved of his charge, “little Alice is in that house—we must pull it down! who will lend a hand?”

 

He did not pause for an answer, but seizing an axe, rushed through the smoke and began to cut down the door-posts. The whole party there assembled, numbering about fifty, rushed forward, as one man, to aid in the effort. The attempt was a wild one. Had Henry considered for a moment, he would have seen that, in the event of their succeeding in pulling down the blazing pile, they should in all probability smother the child in the ruins.

 

“The shell is in the out-house,” said Corrie, eagerly, to the giant who held him.

 

“Wot shell?” inquired Bumpus.

 

“The shell that they blow like a horn to call the people to work with.”

 

“Ah! you’re sane again,” said the sailor, releasing him; “go, find it, lad, and blow till yer cheeks crack.”

 

Corrie was gone long before Jo had concluded even that short remark. In another second the harsh but loud sound of the shell rang over the hill-side. The settlers, black and white, immediately ceased their pursuit of the savages, and from every side they came trooping in by dozens. Without waiting to inquire the cause of what was being done, each man, as he arrived, fell to work on the blazing edifice, and, urged on by Henry’s voice and example, toiled and moiled in the midst of fire and smoke, until the pastor’s house was literally pulled to pieces.

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