These did not avail, and I continued to suffer these abortive creations till a loud voice, at my bed side, and some one shaking me with violence, put an end to my reverie.

My eyes were unsealed, and I started from my pillow.
My chamber was filled with smoke, which, though in some degree luminous, would permit me to see nothing, and by which I was nearly suffocated.
The crackling of flames, and the deafening clamour of voices without, burst upon my ears.

Stunned as I was by this hubbub, scorched with heat, and nearly choaked by the accumulating vapours, I was unable to think or act for my own preservation; I was incapable, indeed, of comprehending my danger.
I was caught up, in an instant, by a pair of sinewy arms, borne to the window, and carried down a ladder which had been placed there.

My uncle stood at the bottom and received me.

I was not fully aware of my situation till I found myself sheltered in the HUT, and surrounded by its inhabitants.
By neglect of the servant, some unextinguished embers had been placed in a barrel in the cellar of the building.