Resistance was forgotten
in the discharge of a duty that had become still more pressing. Ruth
herself was aroused by the nature of the alarm, and all hands and all
minds were arduously occupied in a toil that diverted attention from
incidents which had less interest, because they were teeming less with
instant destruction. Danger is known to lose its terrors by familiarity.
The young borderers became reckless of their persons in the ardor of
exertion, and as success began to crown their efforts, something like
the levity of happier moments got the better of their concern. Stolen
and curious glances were thrown around a place that had so long been
kept sacred to the secret uses of the Puritan, when it was found that
the flames were subdued, and that the present danger was averted. The
light glared powerfully through several openings in the shingles, no
less than through the windows; and every eye was enabled to scan the
contents of an apartment which all had longed, though none had ever
before presumed, to enter.
"The Captain looketh well to the body," whispered Reuben Ring to one of his
comrades, as he wiped the effects of the toil from a sun-burnt brow.
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