Night was now approaching, but we could yet see no prospect of our escaping from our present position.  The darkness, as it came on, served to brighten the effect of the fire; and as we gazed round on every side, as far as the eye could reach, we could see only the bright glare of the conflagration as it went on widening its circle round us.  Now and then, as it reached spots more thickly covered with clumps of tussac grass, we could see the flames rushing upwards in pyramids of fire; but in other places a dense fierce glow could alone be perceived as the fiery wave receded from us.  The sight we beheld was certainly a very grand one, and not easily to be forgotten; but our position was far from pleasant, and we would thankfully have found ourselves on board the schooner, or even in the boat under shelter of a sail.  Our clothes were scorched, and so were our hands and feet; we were getting very hungry, and no fuel remained to enable us to cook our provisions, while now that the fire was removed from us the sharp wind made us feel very cold.  When we considered the small area of the rock which had been at one time like an island amid the fiery ocean, we had more reason than ever to be thankful that we had escaped destruction.  On further examination of the locality we discovered that the proximate cause of our escape was owing to the position of the rock near a piece of water, the extent of which we perceived when the fire in our neighbourhood had burned itself out.  A narrow belt of grass only intervened between the rock and the water, the rest of the ground being a marsh covered with moist rushes, which did not burn.  As the wind had for the greater part of the time blown over the pond, we were thus saved from suffocation.  Had the rock been thickly surrounded by high grass, I think that we must have been burned to death; for, blown by the wind, the flames would have reached the very centre of the rock where we lay; and had we not been roasted, we should have been suffocated by the smoke.  We crouched down on the rock, and sat for some time without speaking, watching the progress of the flames. The ground around us was still glowing with the remains of the fire. How long we had sat silent I do not know, when Jerry exclaimed, with animation--