CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
THINGS BECOME TOO HOT FOR THE TWITTER FAMILY.
Before the thunder of Giles Scott's first rap had ceased, a pane ofglass in one of the lower windows burst, and out came dense volumes ofsmoke, with a red tongue or two piercing them here and there, showingthat the fire had been smouldering long, and had got well alight.
It was followed by an appalling shriek from Mrs Frog, who rushedforward shouting, "Oh! baby! baby!"
"Hold her, sir," said Giles to young Welland, who sprang forward at thesame moment.
Welland was aware of the immense value of prompt obedience, and saw thatGiles was well fitted to command. He seized Mrs Frog and held herfast, 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, andapplied his foot with his great weight and momentum to it. As the oakis shattered by the thunderbolt, so was Samuel Twitter's door by thefoot of Number 666. But the bold constable was met by a volume of blacksmoke which was too much even for him. It drove him back halfsuffocated, while, at the same time, it drove the domestic out of thehouse into his arms. She had rushed from the lower regions just in timeto escape death.
A single minute had not yet elapsed, and only half-a-dozen persons hadassembled, with two or three policemen, who instantly sought to obtainan entrance by a back door.
"Hold her, Sir Richard," said Welland, handing the struggling Mrs Frogover. The knight accepted the charge, while Welland ran to the burninghouse, which seemed to be made of tinder, it blazed up so quickly.
Giles was making desperate efforts to enter by a window which vomitedfire and smoke that defied him. An upper window was thrown open, andSamuel Twitter appeared in his night-dress, shouting frantically.
Stephen Welland saw that entrance or egress by lower window or staircasewas impossible. He had been a noted athlete at school. There was aniron 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 thefirst floor, and dashed it in.
"The donkey-cart!" shouted Welland, in reply, and disappeared.
Giles was quick to understand. He dragged--almost lifted--the donkeyand cart on to the pavement under the window where Mr Twitter stoodwaving his hands and yelling. The poor man had evidently lost hisreason for the time, and was fit for nothing. A hand was seen to grasphis neck behind, and he disappeared. At the same moment a blanket camefluttering down, and Welland stood on the window-sill with Mrs Twitterin his arms, and a sheet of flame following. The height was aboutthirty feet. The youth steadied himself for one moment, as if to takeaim, and dropped Mrs Twitter, as he might have dropped a bundle. Shenot only went into the vegetable cart, with a bursting shriek, but rightthrough it, and reached the pavement unhurt--though terribly shaken!
Four minutes had not yet elapsed. The crowd had thickened, and a dullrumbling which had been audible for half a minute increased into amighty roar as the fiery-red engine with its brass-helmeted heroesdashed round the corner, and pulled up with a crash, seeming to shootthe men off. These swarmed, for a few seconds, about the hose, waterplug, and nozzles. At the same instant the great fire-escape camerushing on the scene, like some antediluvian monster, but by that timeGiles had swept away the debris of the donkey-cart, with Mrs Twitterimbedded therein, and had stretched the blanket with five powerfulvolunteers to hold it. "Jump, sir, jump!" he cried. Samuel Twitterjumped--unavoidably, for Welland pushed him--just as the hiss andcrackle of the water-spouts began.
He came down in a heap, rebounded like india-rubber, and was hurled toone side in time to make way for one of his young flock.
"The children! the children!" screamed Mrs Twitter, disengaging herselffrom the vegetables.
"Where are they?" asked a brass-helmeted man, quietly, as the head ofthe 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 quiteregardless of these explanations. At the same time top windows wereopened up, and little night-dressed figures appeared at them all,apparently making faces, for their cries were drowned in the shoutsbelow.
From these upper windows smoke was issuing, but not yet in dense,suffocating volumes. The quiet man of the Escape entered a second floorwindow through smoke and flames as though he were a salamander.
The crowd below gave him a lusty cheer, for it was a great surging crowdby that time; nevertheless it surged within bounds, for a powerful bodyof police kept it back, leaving free space for the firemen to work.
A moment or two after the quiet fireman had entered, the night-dressedlittle ones disappeared from the other windows and congregated, as if bymagic, at the window just above the head of the Escape. Almostsimultaneously the fly-ladder of the Escape--used for upper windows--wasswung out, and when the quiet fireman had got out on the window-sillwith little Lucy in his arms and little Alice held by her dress in histeeth, its upper rounds touched his knees, as if with a kiss ofrecognition!
He descended the fly-ladder, and shoved the two terrified little onessomewhat promptly into the canvas shoot, where a brother fireman wasready to pilot them together xxx to the ground. Molly being big had tobe carried by herself, but Willie and Fred went together.
During all this time poor Mrs Frog had given herself over to the oneidea of screaming "baby! bai-e-by!" and struggling to get free from thetwo policemen, who had come to the relief of Sir Richard, and whotenderly restrained her.
In like manner Mr and Mrs Twitter, although not absolutely in need ofrestraint, went about wringing their hands and making such confused andcontradictory statements that no one could understand what they meant,and the firemen quietly went on with their work quite regardless oftheir 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 theyask her, `Is your baby up there?' she yells `No, not _our_ baby,' andbefore she can explain she gasps, and then I try to explain, and that sobamboozles--"
"_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 flamebelow, leaving visible the door of the very room to which Twitter hadpointed.
A despairing groan escaped him as he saw it, for now all communicationseemed cut off, and the men were about to pull the Escape away toprevent its being burned, while, more engines having arrived, somethinglike a mountain torrent of water was descending on the devoted house.
"Stop, lads, a moment," said Giles, springing upon the Escape. He mighthave explained to the firemen what he had learned, but that would havetaken time, and every second just then was of the utmost value. He wasup 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. Thedoor of the room pointed out by Twitter was opposite--fortunately on theside furthest from the centre of fire, but the floor was gone. Only twogreat beams remained, and the one Giles had to cross was more than halfburned through. It was a fragile bridge on which to pass over an abyssso terrible. But heroes do not pause to calculate. Giles walkedstraight across it with the steadiness of a rope-dancer, and burst inthe scarred and splitting door.
The smoke here was not too dense to prevent his seeing. One glancere
vealed 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 thework of a moment, but the awful abyss now lay before him, and it seemedto have been heated seven times. The beam, too, was by that timere-kindling with the increased heat, and the burden he carried preventedGiles 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 wasconcentrated now on the one figure. The throbbing of the engines washeard distinctly when the roar of excitement was thus temporarilychecked.
As Giles moved along, the beam cracked under his great weight. The heatbecame almost insupportable. His boots seemed to shrivel up and tightenround his feet.
"He's gone! No, he's not!" gasped some of the crowd, as the tall smokeand 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 hethrew it off, and at the same time bounded to the window, sending thebeam, which was broken off by the shock, hissing down into the lake offire.
The danger was past, and a loud, continuous, enthusiastic cheer greetedgallant 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 itsmother--its _own_ mother!
When Sir Richard Brandon returned home that night, he found ituncommonly difficult to sleep. When, after many unsuccessful efforts,he did manage to slumber, his dreams re-produced the visions of hiswaking hours, with many surprising distortions and mixings--one of whichdistortions was, that all the paupers in the common lodging-houses hadsuddenly become rich, while he, Sir Richard, had as suddenly becomepoor, and a beggar in filthy rags, with nobody to care for him, and thatthese enriched beggars came round him and asked him, in quite afacetious way, "how he liked it!"
Next morning, when the worthy knight arose, he found his unrested brainstill busy with the same theme. He also found that he had got food formeditation, and for discussion with little Di, not only for some time tocome, but, for the remainder of his hours.