He leaped upon the slanting trunk and ascended it rapidly.

She waited in mute expectation.
There was a sudden movement of the root on which she sat, a deafening crash, and she was thrown forward on her face.
The vast bulk of the leaning tree, dislodged from its aerial support by the gradual sapping of the spring at its roots, or by the crumbling of the bark from the heat, had slipped, made a half revolution, and, falling, overbore the lesser trees in its path, and tore, in its resistless momentum, a broad opening to the underbrush.
With a cry to Low, Teresa staggered to her feet.

There was an interval of hideous silence, but no reply.

She called again.

There was a sudden deepening roar, the blast of a fiery furnace swept through the opening, a thousand luminous points around her burst into fire, and in an instant she was lost in a whirlwind of smoke and flame! From the onset of its fury to its culmination twenty minutes did not elapse; but in that interval a radius of two hundred yards around the hidden spring was swept of life and light and motion.
For the rest of that day and part of the night a pall of smoke hung above the scene of desolation.