And, without any further speculation, off I ran towards the village. The General called after me, but I did not stop to listen. However, before I had gone a hundred yards, the carriage rattled past me at a gallop. The General, evidently moved by a humane motive, was hastening, like myself, towards the scene of the catastrophe, where I soon arrived. All the village was astir, and I found the General and his companion had taken command of the rustics, just as they would of an army on the field of battle. The fire had broken out in the workshop of a cart-wright. The fiery element had attacked an adjacent shed full of wood, and threatened to reduce the neighboring house to ashes. Now, at Islettes, fire-engines were unknown, and I need scarcely say that handing along little buckets of water from the river was by no means an effectual remedy. “We must cut off the fire!” shouted the General. “But how?” returned the peasants. “I want somebody,” cried the General, “who will get up upon the roof of that shed, and cut away the principal support. The post will fall, and carry the roof with it.” “Oh, yes!” said a voice; “and the somebody in question will go down with the roof!” “Very likely!” acquiesced the General, calmly; “but the fire will be smothered, and the rest of the village saved.” At that moment, a certain passage from “Emile” flashed across my mind. “Give me an axe!” I cried. As I spoke, I saw one leaning against a house near which I was standing. I laid down my “Emile” and a dictionary which M. Jean Baptiste had given me; seized the axe, and rushed into the house adjacent to the shed. Already its inmates were carrying out all their little property, expecting every instant that their cottage would be in flames. Up the little wooden stairs I rushed, and scrambled out on the roof through a sort of trap-door. It was my first experience upon roofs; but as I had been accustomed to climbing trees up to any height, a promenade on the thatch was only child’s play. Below, all was hushed in anxiety. I could only hear the peculiar billow-like sounds of the flames, and the fall of the burning fragments as they gave way under the fire. Presently I found myself in a dense atmosphere of smoke and sparks. I was nearly stifled; but I knew that all eyes and hearts were fixed upon me, and that gave me strength to succeed or to die, as it might be. Supporting myself by the chimney, I commenced to cut away a hole round about the roof-tree. I was strong of my age, and could wield with dexterity the axe—that instrument of my adopted calling; but though at every blow the upright beam trembled—on the other hand, the advancing flame seemed to increase in volume.