Sobbing words were at her lips. “Be merciful,” she pleaded to the Powers of whom mercy is the eternal spirit. “Don’t make it last any longer! Let me go to sleep——” Yet no ear, it seemed to her, could hear her above the frightful roar of the fire. And even her arms were bound so that she could not stretch them up in supplication. And it was as if her prayer had been heard. At least she was not to endure the end in loneliness. A sharp, high bark pierced through the angry crackle and roar of the fire, and Shep leaped to her side. Only a narrow path remained between the two converging walls of flame behind her: a dreadful place of blasting heat and blinding smoke and darting flame tongues, yet the dog had sprung through like a winged creature. Behind him, still brave and strong and enduring, came his master. He also sprang bravely through the closing barrier of flame. A great spirit of undying strength was on him, and the red arms reached for him in vain. He swung to her side, a dim, strange figure that at first seemed only a figment of fancy born in her prayers. He did not speak to her. Only strangled sobs were at his lips. His white-bladed hunting knife flashed at her bonds. He snatched off his coat, wrapping it in one motion about her head and shoulders. He knew how those fire tongues he had just passed through would receive her tresses. And then she felt muscular arms go around her. As lightly and as strongly as if on the wings of Death itself he lifted her to his breast. He sprang forward with all his strength. And the three of them fought their way back—through the gates of peril—to the last remaining island in the sea of flame. CHAPTER XXX It was more than a reprieve,—the little hour that they would have together before their own island was submerged. They were three shepherds, and in their united strength they were not so fearful of such stars as would be borne into their sky. Here was comradeship instead of loneliness, courage instead of terror, and the deathless joy of love instead of despair. They went, the three of them, back to the motionless flock. In the first place the sheep were fairly in the center of the space of unburned forest—a brushy hollow where the smoke was least—moving just enough to keep halfway between the steadily advancing fire up-wind and the slow-creeping backfire in the opposite direction. Besides, they were shepherds, and in their own hearts they felt a blind but undeniable satisfaction in being with the flocks at the end.