Again the flames leaped higher and higher.  Harvey covered his face with his hands.  He could not bear the sight another instant.

Beth would have comforted him if she had known how, but what could she say?  She, too, felt that nothing could stop the onward rush of the dragons.

But the one opponent that had power over them suddenly descended to take part in the fray.

Beth clapped her hands in glee.  “It’s raining, Harvey; it’s raining.”

The sun was still shining brightly, but, sure enough, one of those showers peculiar to tropical lands was descending, and the wind, too, abated somewhat.

“Thank God,” murmured Harvey.  “Beth, I’m going to speak to the men.”

She grasped him by the arm.  “Oh, Harvey, they might arrest you.”

“Nonsense, Beth; they don’t know how the fire started, and if their houses don’t burn, there’s no use in telling.  You wait here for me.”

He was gone only a few minutes, and, when Beth caught sight of his radiant face, she knew the good news before he said a word.

“Beth, they say the houses won’t burn.  We can go now.”

They circled around the woods by the road, and, when they came to the river, walked down the beach to their boat which they found unharmed.

The fish were burned to cinders.

“We don’t care, do we, Beth?  I couldn’t eat them, anyway, after all the trouble they have caused us.  It was all their fault.  If they hadn’t been so foolish as to be caught, there wouldn’t have been any fire.  But I’ve built fires a hundred times before and never had anything like this to happen.”

Trouble, it is said, never comes singly.  When they were once more back in the boat, Harvey found that he had both tide and wind against him, and the river had become very squally.  The St. Johns is one of the most treacherous rivers in the world.  It takes only a very short time for her waters to become white-capped.

Harvey pulled manfully on the oars, but it was very hard for him to make any headway.  Beth finally asked if she could not help to row.

“No, keep perfectly still where you are,” he answered in such a short manner that his little companion felt grieved.  She tried to let him know that she was hurt, by not saying another word, but he was too busy to mind.  By this time, he was worried.

“Supposing anything happened to us,” he thought to himself, “Beth’s mother would never forgive me.  It was my fault that Beth came.”

He never knew exactly how it happened.  Either the oar was defective, or else he pulled too hard on it as it struck a large wave; whichever it was, one of the oars snapped suddenly.  For a moment or so the boat rocked helplessly on the waves, and it was driven backwards towards the shore from which they had just come.

“Harvey,” asked Beth almost in a whisper, “are we going to be drowned?  Can’t I ever tell mamma how sorry, how very sorry, I am?”