Actually, it was not more than five minutes before they were well up the hillside, with the conflagration sweeping away from them below. She heard a gasping voice: “Not yet--more into the wind!” and she was helped forward until a freshening breeze fanned her face. She was placed on a bed of heather; she remembered afterwards that either she saw Jimmy or dreamed she did; but Arthur was far up the hillside, firing the heather again. She lay for a quarter of an hour before he returned; then he flung himself beside her and broke suddenly into sobs that shook his frame. “Oh, my darling!” he cried heart-brokenly; “where had you been?” She murmured something, her own eyes closing; and then he seized her as if even yet some horror strove to part them. “Oh, I waited--waited--all Soyland blazed--and the wind turned and still you didn’t come; but I knew you were clever and brave, though I couldn’t see you.... Ah! This won’t do.” He stood up and began to walk about. Presently he was calmer, and sat down again. “That’s better,” he said. He took her in his arms and looked down at her grimed and swollen eyes. “Yes, I knew you were clever and brave; and you must be clever and brave again in a few minutes, dear. The next few hours are our opportunity.... What do you say?” Gathered against his bosom, she had murmured something. “Yes, yes; you can have five minutes; you shall have that if I have to fire all the ling in Lancashire. Yes, we’re better now.... See, Jimmy’s putting out his arms to you, Cis----” Softly he gave her the child. Below them, the spectacle was one of infernal magnificence. They were now in the rear of the flames that ran devouringly forward, rank on rank, with a red courier springing up wherever a spark alighted. On the level ground the flame had spread swiftly; it now reached the foot of Brotherton Head. It took the whole of the slope above it in one terrific red lick. With a short dull roar, as if of an explosion, the hill sprang into a sheet of flame. All smoke was lost in an upward spouting of fire. At three or four points of the hill, taller spouts--gorse, likely--screamed upward and passed; and then came short bents, and for a moment smoke could be seen far away, rolling over the whole of Back o’ th’ Mooin. To the south, for a mile and more, all was a desert of ash, white and black and grey, with patches still smouldering; and a dancing mesh of sparks and short flames and glowing embers formed the rear-guard of the advance. “Put your skirt on and come now,” said Monjoy, bending over his wife and taking her blackened hands. In a few minutes she was ready to set forth. He took Jimmy again, and, still a little tremulous, he talked to the child as he supported Cicely up the hill.