In the mean time, the fires drew nearer and nearer the northern bank of the river.  A strong breeze sprang up and immense columns of smoke mounted to the sky.  Then came showers of ashes, cinders and burning brands.  At last, a tornado, terrible in fury, arose to mingle its horrors with the fire.  Thunderbolt on thunderbolt, crash on crash rent the air.  At intervals of momentary lull in the storm, the roar of the flames was heard.  Rapidly advancing, they shot fiery tongues into every beast lair of the forest, into every serpent-haunted crevice of the rock, sending forth their denizens bellowing and writhing with anguish and death; onward still they rushed licking up with hissing sound every rivulet and shallow pond, twisting and coiling round the glorious pines, that had battled the winds and tempests hundreds of years, but now to be snapped and demolished by this new enemy.

With breathless interest, the inhabitants of the settlement watched the progress of the flames.  The hamlet where they lived was situated on a wide point of land, around which the Miramichi made an unusually bold sweep.  Micah’s Grove partly skirted it on the north.

From the Grove to the river, the forest-trees had been cleared, leaving the open space dotted with the houses of the settlers.  The fire pressed steadily on toward the Grove.  The destruction of that forest fane, consecrated so recently to the worship of God, and the burning of their homes and earthly goods seemed inevitable.  The people, with pale, excited faces, awaited this heart-rending spectacle.

Just at this moment, the tornado, coming from the North, with terrific fury, drawing flames, trees, and every movable object in its wake, whirling forward with gigantic power, suddenly turned in its path, veered towards the east, swept past the Grove and past the settlement, leaving them wholly untouched, and took its destructive course onward to the ocean.  The people were dumb with amazement.  Ruin had seemed so sure that they scarcely trusted the evidence of their senses.

They dared not even think they had been saved from so much misery.  For a time, not a word was uttered, not a muscle moved.

Mr. Mummychog was the first to-recover his voice.

“‘Tis a maracle! and nuthin’ else”, he exclaimed, “and we’ve jest got to thank Captin’ Norton for it.  He’s been a prayin’ ut we might be past by, all ’long and ’tis likely the Lord has heerd him.  ’Tain’t on eour own acceounts, my worthy feller-sinners, that we’ve been spared.  Mind ye remember that”.

The people in their joy gathered around the missionary, and united with Micah, in acknowledging their belief, that his prayers had averted from them this great calamity.  For a moment, their attention was distracted from the still raging horrors of the scene by the sense of relief from threatened danger.

It was during this brief lull of intense anxiety and expectation, that our friends first became aware of the absence of Mr. Somers.  They had supposed, of course, that he was standing somewhere among the groups of people, his attention riveted, like their own, upon the scene before them.  Adele first woke to the consciousness that he was not with them.