Before the thunder of Giles Scott's first rap had ceased, a pane of
glass in one of the lower windows burst, and out came dense volumes of
smoke, with a red tongue or two piercing them here and there, showing
that the fire had been smouldering long, and had got well alight.
It was followed by an appalling shriek from Mrs Frog, who rushed
forward shouting, "Oh! baby! baby!"
"Hold her, sir," said Giles to young Welland, who sprang forward at the
same moment.
Welland was aware of the immense value of prompt obedience, and saw that
Giles was well fitted to command. He seized Mrs Frog and held her
fast, while Giles, knowing that there was no time to stand on ceremony,
stepped a few paces back, ran at the door with all his might, and
applied his foot with his great weight and momentum to it. As the oak
is shattered by the thunderbolt, so was Samuel Twitter's door by the
foot of Number 666. But the bold constable was met by a volume of black
smoke which was too much even for him. It drove him back half
suffocated, while, at the same time, it drove the domestic out of the
house into his arms. She had rushed from the lower regions just in time
to escape death.
A single minute had not yet elapsed, and only half-a-dozen persons had
assembled, with two or three policemen, who instantly sought to obtain
an entrance by a back door.
"Hold her, Sir Richard," said Welland, handing the struggling Mrs Frog
over. The knight accepted the charge, while Welland ran to the burning
house, which seemed to be made of tinder, it blazed up so quickly.
Giles was making desperate efforts to enter by a window which vomited
fire and smoke that defied him. An upper window was thrown open, and
Samuel Twitter appeared in his night-dress, shouting frantically.
Stephen Welland saw that entrance or egress by lower window or staircase
was impossible. He had been a noted athlete at school. There was an
iron spout which ran from the street to the roof. He rushed to that,
and sprang up more like a monkey than a man.
"Pitch over blankets!" roared Giles, as the youth gained a window of the
first floor, and dashed it in.
"The donkey-cart!" shouted Welland, in reply, and disappeared.
Giles was quick to understand. He dragged--almost lifted--the donkey
and cart on to the pavement under the window where Mr Twitter stood
waving his hands and yelling. The poor man had evidently lost his
reason for the time, and was fit for nothing. A hand was seen to grasp
his neck behind, and he disappeared. At the same moment a blanket came
fluttering down, and Welland stood on the window-sill with Mrs Twitter
in his arms, and a sheet of flame following. The height was about
thirty feet. The youth steadied himself for one moment, as if to take
aim, and dropped Mrs Twitter, as he might have dropped a bundle. She
not only went into the vegetable cart, with a bursting shriek, but right
through it, and reached the pavement unhurt--though terribly shaken!
Four minutes had not yet elapsed. The crowd had thickened, and a dull
rumbling which had been audible for half a minute increased into a
mighty roar as the fiery-red engine with its brass-helmeted heroes
dashed round the corner, and pulled up with a crash, seeming to shoot
the men off. These swarmed, for a few seconds, about the hose, water
plug, and nozzles. At the same instant the great fire-escape came
rushing on the scene, like some antediluvian monster, but by that time
Giles had swept away the debris of the donkey-cart, with Mrs Twitter
imbedded therein, and had stretched the blanket with five powerful
volunteers to hold it. "Jump, sir, jump!" he cried. Samuel Twitter
jumped--unavoidably, for Welland pushed him--just as the hiss and
crackle of the water-spouts began.
He came down in a heap, rebounded like india-rubber, and was hurled to
one side in time to make way for one of his young flock.
"The children! the children!" screamed Mrs Twitter, disengaging herself
from the vegetables.
"Where are they?" asked a brass-helmeted man, quietly, as the head of
the Escape went crashing through an upper window.
"The top floor! all of 'em there!--top flo-o-o-r!"
"No--no-o-o! some on the second fl-o-o-or!" yelled Mr Twitter.
"I say _top--floo-o-o-r_," repeated the wife.
"You forget--baby--ba-i-by!" roared the husband.
A wild shriek was Mrs Twitter's reply.
The quiet man with the brass helmet had run up the Escape quite
regardless of these explanations. At the same time top windows were
opened up, and little night-dressed figures appeared at them all,
apparently making faces, for their cries were drowned in the shouts
below.
From these upper windows smoke was issuing, but not yet in dense,
suffocating volumes. The quiet man of the Escape entered a second floor
window through smoke and flames as though he were a salamander.
The crowd below gave him a lusty cheer, for it was a great surging crowd
by that time; nevertheless it surged within bounds, for a powerful body
of police kept it back, leaving free space for the firemen to work.
A moment or two after the quiet fireman had entered, the night-dressed
little ones disappeared from the other windows and congregated, as if by
magic, at the window just above the head of the Escape. Almost
simultaneously the fly-ladder of the Escape--used for upper windows--was
swung out, and when the quiet fireman had got out on the window-sill
with little Lucy in his arms and little Alice held by her dress in his
teeth, its upper rounds touched his knees, as if with a kiss of
recognition!
He descended the fly-ladder, and shoved the two terrified little ones
somewhat promptly into the canvas shoot, where a brother fireman was
ready to pilot them together xxx to the ground. Molly being big had to
be carried by herself, but Willie and Fred went together.
During all this time poor Mrs Frog had given herself over to the one
idea of screaming "baby! bai-e-by!" and struggling to get free from the
two policemen, who had come to the relief of Sir Richard, and who
tenderly restrained her.
In like manner Mr and Mrs Twitter, although not absolutely in need of
restraint, went about wringing their hands and making such confused and
contradictory statements that no one could understand what they meant,
and the firemen quietly went on with their work quite regardless of
their existence.
"Policeman!" said Sam Twitter, looking up in the face of Number 666,
with a piteous expression, and almost weeping with vexation, "_nobody_
will listen to me. I would go up myself, but the firemen won't let me,
and my dear wife has such an idea of sticking to truth that when they
ask her, `Is your baby up there?' she yells `No, not _our_ baby,' and
before she can explain she gasps, and then I try to explain, and that so
bamboozles--"
"_Is_ your baby there?" demanded Number 666 vehemently.
"Yes, it is!" cried Twitter, without the slightest twinge of conscience.
"What room?"
"That one," pointing to the left side of the house on the first floor.
Just then part of the roof gave way and fell into the furnace of flame
below, leaving visible the door of the very room to which Twitter had
pointed.
A despairing groan escaped him as he saw it, for now all communication
seemed cut off, and the men were about to pull the Escape away to
prevent its being burned, while, more engines having arrived, something
like a mountain torrent of water was descending on the devoted house.
"Stop, lads, a moment," said Giles, springing upon the Escape. He might
have explained to the firemen what he had learned, but that would have
taken time, and every second just then was of the utmost value. He was
up on the window-sill before they well understood what he meant to do.
The heat was intolerable. A very lake of fire rolled beneath him. The
door of the room pointed out by Twitter was opposite--fortunately on the
side furthest from the centre of fire, but the floor was gone. Only two
great beams remained, and the one Giles had to cross was more than half
burned through. It was a fragile bridge on which to pass over an abyss
so terrible. But heroes do not pause to calculate. Giles walked
straight across it with the steadiness of a rope-dancer, and burst in
the scarred and splitting door.
The smoke here was not too dense to prevent his seeing. One glance
revealed baby Frog lying calmly in her crib as if asleep. To seize her,
wrap her in the blankets, and carry her to the door of the room, was the
work of a moment, but the awful abyss now lay before him, and it seemed
to have been heated seven times. The beam, too, was by that time
re-kindling with the increased heat, and the burden he carried prevented
Giles from seeing, and balancing himself so well. He did not hesitate,
but he advanced slowly and with caution.
A dead silence fell on the awe-stricken crowd, whose gaze was
concentrated now on the one figure. The throbbing of the engines was
heard distinctly when the roar of excitement was thus temporarily
checked.
As Giles moved along, the beam cracked under his great weight. The heat
became almost insupportable. His boots seemed to shrivel up and tighten
round his feet.
"He's gone! No, he's not!" gasped some of the crowd, as the tall smoke
and flame encompassed him, and he was seen for a moment to waver.
It was a touch of giddiness, but by a violent impulse of the will he
threw it off, and at the same time bounded to the window, sending the
beam, which was broken off by the shock, hissing down into the lake of
fire.
The danger was past, and a loud, continuous, enthusiastic cheer greeted
gallant Number 666 as he descended the chute with the baby in his arms,
and delivered it alive and well, and more solemn than ever, to its
mother--its _own_ mother!
When Sir Richard Brandon returned home that night, he found it
uncommonly difficult to sleep. When, after many unsuccessful efforts,
he did manage to slumber, his dreams re-produced the visions of his
waking hours, with many surprising distortions and mixings--one of which
distortions was, that all the paupers in the common lodging-houses had
suddenly become rich, while he, Sir Richard, had as suddenly become
poor, and a beggar in filthy rags, with nobody to care for him, and that
these enriched beggars came round him and asked him, in quite a
facetious way, "how he liked it!"
Next morning, when the worthy knight arose, he found his unrested brain
still busy with the same theme. He also found that he had got food for
meditation, and for discussion with little Di, not only for some time to
come, but, for the remainder of his hours.