He sprang to the bed,--it was empty.
With a cry of despair, and blinded by smoke, he dashed about the room, grasping wildly at objects in the hope that he might find his child.

As he did so he stumbled over a prostrate form, which he instantly seized, raised in his arms, and bore out of the blazing house, round which a number of the people were now assembled.
The form he had thus plucked from destruction was that of the poor boy, who would willingly have given his life to rescue Alice, and who still lay in the state of insensibility into which he had been thrown by the blow from a gun or heavy club.
The missionary dropped his burden, turned wildly round, and was about to plunge once again into the heart of the blazing ruin, when he was seized in the strong arms of Henry Stuart, who, with the assistance of Ole Thorwald, forcibly prevented him from doing that which would have resulted in almost certain death.
The pastor's head sunk on his breast.

The excitement of action and hope no longer sustained him.

With a deep groan, he fell to the earth insensible..