Henry pawed awkwardly through the smoke in the upper halls. He had
attempted to guide himself by the walls, but they were too hot. The
paper was crimpling, and he expected at any moment to have a flame
burst from under his hands.
"Jimmie!"
He did not call very loud, as if in fear that the humming flames below
would overhear him.
"Jimmie! Oh, Jimmie!"
Stumbling and panting, he speedily reached the entrance to Jimmie's
room and flung open the door. The little chamber had no smoke in it at
all. It was faintly illuminated by a beautiful rosy light reflected
circuitously from the flames that were consuming the house. The boy
had apparently just been aroused by the noise. He sat in his bed, his
lips apart, his eyes wide, while upon his little white-robed figure
played caressingly the light from the fire. As the door flew open he
had before him this apparition of his pal, a terror-stricken negro,
all tousled and with wool scorching, who leaped upon him and bore him
up in a blanket as if the whole affair were a case of kidnapping by a
dreadful robber chief. Without waiting to go through the usual short
but complete process of wrinkling up his face, Jimmie let out a
gorgeous bawl, which resembled the expression of a calf's deepest
terror. As Johnson, bearing him, reeled into the smoke of the hall, he
flung his arms about his neck and buried his face in the blanket. He
called twice in muffled tones: "Mam-ma! Mam-ma!" When Johnson came to
the top of the stairs with his burden, he took a quick step backward.
Through the smoke that rolled to him he could see that the lower hall
was all ablaze. He cried out then in a howl that resembled Jimmie's
former achievement. His legs gained a frightful faculty of bending
sideways. Swinging about precariously on these reedy legs, he made his
way back slowly, back along the upper hall. From the way of him then,
he had given up almost all idea of escaping from the burning house,
and with it the desire. He was submitting, submitting because of his
fathers, bending his mind in a most perfect slavery to this
conflagration.
He now clutched Jimmie as unconsciously as when, running toward the
house, he had clutched the hat with the bright silk band.
Suddenly he remembered a little private staircase which led from a
bedroom to an apartment which the doctor had fitted up as a laboratory
and work-house, where he used some of his leisure, and also hours when
he might have been sleeping, in devoting himself to experiments which
came in the way of his study and interest.
When Johnson recalled this stairway the submission to the blaze
departed instantly. He had been perfectly familiar with it, but his
confusion had destroyed the memory of it.
In his sudden momentary apathy there had been little that resembled
fear, but now, as a way of safety came to him, the old frantic terror
caught him. He was no longer creature to the flames, and he was afraid
of the battle with them. It was a singular and swift set of
alternations in which he feared twice without submission, and
submitted once without fear.
"Jimmie!" he wailed, as he staggered on his way. He wished this little
inanimate body at his breast to participate in his tremblings. But the
child had lain limp and still during these headlong charges and
countercharges, and no sign came from him.
Johnson passed through two rooms and came to the head of the stairs.
As he opened the door great billows of smoke poured out, but gripping
Jimmie closer, he plunged down through them. All manner of odors
assailed him during this flight. They seemed to be alive with envy,
hatred, and malice. At the entrance to the laboratory he confronted a
strange spectacle. The room was like a garden in the region where
might be burning flowers. Flames of violet, crimson, green, blue,
orange, and purple were blooming everywhere. There was one blaze that
was precisely the hue of a delicate coral. In another place was a mass
that lay merely in phosphorescent inaction like a pile of emeralds.
But all these marvels were to be seen dimly through clouds of heaving,
turning, deadly smoke.
Johnson halted for a moment on the threshold. He cried out again in
the negro wail that had in it the sadness of the swamps. Then he
rushed across the room. An orange-colored flame leaped like a panther
at the lavender trousers. This animal bit deeply into Johnson. There
was an explosion at one side, and suddenly before him there reared a
delicate, trembling sapphire shape like a fairy lady. With a quiet
smile she blocked his path and doomed him and Jimmie. Johnson
shrieked, and then ducked in the manner of his race in fights. He
aimed to pass under the left guard of the sapphire lady. But she was
swifter than eagles, and her talons caught in him as he plunged past
her. Bowing his head as if his neck had been struck, Johnson lurched
forward, twisting this way and that way. He fell on his back. The
still form in the blanket flung from his arms, rolled to the edge of
the floor and beneath the window.
Johnson had fallen with his head at the base of an old-fashioned desk.
There was a row of jars upon the top of this desk. For the most part,
they were silent amid this rioting, but there was one which seemed to
hold a scintillant and writhing serpent.
Suddenly the glass splintered, and a ruby-red snakelike thing poured
its thick length out upon the top of the old desk. It coiled and
hesitated, and then began to swim a languorous way down the mahogany
slant. At the angle it waved its sizzling molten head to and fro over
the closed eyes of the man beneath it. Then, in a moment, with a
mystic impulse, it moved again, and the red snake flowed directly down
into Johnson's upturned face.
Afterwards the trail of this creature seemed to reek, and amid flames
and low explosions drops like red-hot jewels pattered softly down it
at leisurely intervals.
[Illustration: "In the Laboratory"]