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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: hope that he cherished.
Thus left alone, with my reason disinthralled, disenchanted, I
surveyed more calmly the extent of the actual peril with which we
were threatened, and the peril seemed less, so surveyed.
It is true all the Bush-land behind, almost up to the bed of the
creek, was on fire; but the grasses, through which the flame spread
so rapidly, ceased at the opposite marge of the creek. Watery
pools were still, at intervals, left in the bed of the creek,
shining tremulous, like waves of fire, in the glare reflected from
the burning land; and even where the water failed, the stony course
of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the
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