Through smoke, under falling cinders, and by distracted and fleeing
households I went. The moment I turned the second corner I espied the
house. It was already half a square from the oncoming fire, but on the
northern side of the street, just out of its probable track and not in
great danger except from sparks. But it was old and roofed with shingles;
a decrepit Creole cottage sitting under dense cedars in a tangle of rose
and honeysuckle vines, and strangely beautified by a flood of smoke-dimmed
yellow sunlight.
As I hurried forward, several men and boys came from the opposite
direction at a run and an engine followed them, jouncing and tilting
across the sidewalk opposite the little asylum, into a yard, to draw from
a fresh well. Their leader was a sight that drew all eyes. He was coatless
and hatless; his thin cotton shirt, with its sleeves rolled up to the
elbows, was torn almost off his shaggy breast, his trousers were drenched
with water and a rude bandage round his head was soaked with blood. He
carried an axe. The throng shut him from my sight, but I ran to the spot
and saw him again standing before the engine horses with his back close to
their heads. A strong, high board fence shut them off from the well and
against it stood the owner of the property, pale as death, guarding the
precious water with a shotgun at full cock. I heard him say:
"The first fellow that touches this fence----"
But he did not finish. Quicker than his gun could flash and bang
harmlessly in the air the man before him had dropped the axe and leaped
upon him with the roar of a lion. The empty gun flew one way and its owner
another and almost before either struck the ground the axe was swinging
and crashing into the fence.
As presently the engine rolled through the gap and shouting men backed her
to the edge of the well, the big axeman paused to wipe the streaming sweat
from his begrimed face with his arm. I clutched him.
"Manouvrier!"
A smile of recognition shone for an instant and vanished as I added,
"Come to your own house! Come, you can't save it here."
He turned a quick, wild look at the fire, seized me by the arm and with a
gaze of deepest gratitude, asked:
"You tryin' save her?"
"I'll do anything I can."
"Oh, dass right!" His face was full of mingled joy and pain. "You go
yondeh--mek yo' possible!" We were hurrying to the street--"Oh, yass, faw
God's sake go, mek yo' possible!"
"But, Manouvrier, you must come too! Where's your wife? The chief danger
to your house isn't here, it's where the fire's between it and the wind!"
His answer was a look of anguish. "Good God! my fran'. We come yondeh so
quick we can! But--foudre tonnerre!--look that house here fill' with
ba-bee'! What we goin' do? Those Sister' can't climb on roof with bocket'
wateh. You see I got half-dozen boy' up yondeh; if I go 'way they dis-cend
and run off at the fire, spark' fall on roof an'--" his thumb flew out.
"Sparks! Heavens! Manouvrier, your house is in the path of the _flames!_"
The man flew at me and hung over me, his strong locks shaking, his great
black fist uplifted and the only tears in his eyes I ever saw there.
"Damnession! She's not mine! I trade her to God faw these one! Go! tell
him she's his, he kin burn her if he feel like'!" He gave a half laugh,
fresh witness of his distress, and went into the gate of the asylum.
I smiled--what could I do?--and was turning away, when I saw the chief of
the fire department. It took but one moment to tell him my want, and in
another he had put the cottage roof under the charge of four of his men
with instructions not to leave it till the danger was past or the house
burning. The engine near us had drawn the well dry and was coming away. He
met it, pointed to where, beneath swirling billows of black smoke, the
pretty gable of the taxidermist's house shone like a white sail against a
thundercloud, gave orders and disappeared.
The street was filling with people. A row of cottages across the way was
being emptied. The crackling flames were but half a square from
Manouvrier's house. I called him once more to come. He waved his hand
kindly to imply that he knew what I had done. He and his wife were in the
Sisters' front garden walk conversing eagerly with the Mother Superior.
They neared the gate. Suddenly the Mother Superior went back, the
lay-sister guarding the gate let the pair out and the three of us
hurried off together.
We found ourselves now in the uproar and vortex of the struggle. Only at
intervals could we take our attention from the turmoil that impeded or
threatened us, to glance forward at the white gable or back--as Manouvrier
persisted in doing--to the Sisters' cottage. Once I looked behind and
noticed, what I was loath to tell, that the firemen on its roof had grown
busy; but as I was about to risk the truth, the husband and wife, glancing
at their own roof, in one breath groaned aloud. Its gleaming gable had
begun to smoke.
"Ah! that good God have pity on uz!" cried the wife, in tears, but as she
started to run forward I caught her arm and bade her look again. A strong,
white stream of water was falling on the smoking spot and it smoked no
more.
The next minute, with scores of others, choking and blinded with the
smoke, we were flying from the fire. The wind had turned.
"It is only a gust," I cried, "it will swing round again. We must turn the
next corner and reach the house from the far side." I glanced back to see
why my companions lagged and lo! they had vanished.