So, apart from an instinctive tug or two at his moorings, he submitted to his fate.
But, in mid-evening, something occurred, to change his viewpoint, in this matter of nonresistance.
The line of fire, climbing the mountain toward him, had encountered a marshy stretch; where, in normal weather, water stood inches deep.
Despite the drought, there was still enough moisture to stay the advance of the red line until the dampness could be turned to dust and tindery vegetation.

And, in the meanwhile, after the custom of its kind, the fire had sought to spread to either side.

Stopped at the granite-outcrop to the right, it had rolled faster through the herbage to the left.
Thus, by the time the morass was dry enough for the flame to pass it, there was a great sickle of crawling red fire to the left; which encircled a whole flank of the mountain and which was moving straight upward.
Lad knew nothing of this; nor why the advance of the fire's direct line had been so long checked.

Nor did he know, presumably, that this sickle of flame was girdling the mountain-flank; like a murderous net; hemming in all live things within the flaming arc and forcing them on in panic, ahead of its advance.

Perhaps he did not even note the mad scurryings in undergrowth and bramble, in front of the oncoming blaze.