There was room at the end for Robert and Tayoga, too, and Robert found that his comfort increased greatly.

He was in a kind of daze, that was very soothing, and yet he saw everything that went on around him.

But he still looked mostly at the great fire which zealous hands fed and which stood up a pillar of light in the darkness and cold.

He reflected dimly that it was a beautiful fire, a magnificent, a most magnificent fire.
How the first man who saw the first fire must have rejoiced in it! Toward morning the wind sank, and the sheets of rain grew thinner.

Once or twice thunder moaned in the southwest, and there were occasional streaks of lightning, but they were faint, and merely disclosed fleeting strips of a black lake and a black forest.
"Before the sun rises the storm will be gone," said Tayoga.