As he approached, the light grew more intense, and he at length discovered a little cottage-like dwelling, completely embowered in thick foliage, through the crevices of which the flame proceeded, revealing the cause of terror, and illuminating for some distance the dense woods around.

The shrieks still continued; and throwing himself from his horse, Ralph darted forward, and with a single and sudden application of his foot, struck the door from its hinges, and entered the dwelling just in time to save its inmates from the worst of all kinds of death.
The apartment was in a light blaze--the drapery of a couch which stood in one corner partially consumed, and, at the first glance, the whole prospect afforded but little hope of a successful struggle with the conflagration.

There was no time to be lost, yet the scene was enough to have paralyzed the nerves of the most heroic action.
On the couch thus circumstanced lay an elderly lady, seemingly in the very last stages of disease.

She seemed only at intervals conscious of the fire.

At her side, in a situation almost as helpless as her own, was the young female whose screams had first awakened the attention of the traveller.