what can we do with three or four buckets?"

"Give me a score of men to try and tear down the burning part," cried
Colonel Forrester, who had leaped from his horse, and thrown the reins
to the nearest soldier. "Here, quick! fifty of you come on."

He was close up to the porch, from which the men were tearing down the
barricade, but the general was bending over him directly.

"Look at me, Forrester," he said.

The latter gazed up at him sharply, to see that his face was blackened
with smoke, and the general's lips parted to speak.

"I stayed in yonder till I was driven out by the fire. It is not safe
to go."

"But we must save the place," cried the colonel; and he dashed through
the opening the men had made, followed by Fred and Samson, a dozen more,
including the general, influenced by his friend's example, rushing after
them.

They reached the Hall, but only to find that the flames were literally
rushing out of the great dining-room door, on the one side, and running
up the panelled walls, setting the beautiful ceiling ablaze, while from
the library, on the other, there was a furnace-like roar, as the flames
literally charged up the oaken staircase, whose balusters were already
glowing, and the gallery and corridor were fast flaring up as the fire
licked and darted and played about.

"You see," said the general, as he seized the colonel's arm again, "if
we had ample water and the proper means, we could do nothing."

Colonel Forrester groaned as he saw the fire darting up the panels, the
carved beams of fine old oak already well alight, and the various
familiar objects falling victims to the flames. Even as he gazed, with
the cool air of evening rushing in behind them through the porch, and
wafting the clouds of smoke upward to pass rapidly along the corridor as
if it were some large horizontal chimney, he saw the canvases of the old
family paintings heave and crumple up, while the faces of Sir Godfrey's
ancestors seemed to Fred to be gazing fiercely through the lurid light,
and reproaching him for helping to desolate their home.

Frames, panelling, the oaken gallery rails, blazed up as if they had
been of resin in the tremendous heat; the stained-glass in the various
windows crackled, flew, and fell tinkling down.

"Well," said the general, quietly, "you see, the place was fired in two
places. We can do nothing?"

"No," groaned Colonel Forrester, as he looked wildly round. Then, in a
despairing tone,