CHAPTER VII.--THE FIRE.
A bell with a deep baying note rang out in the darkness.
If you have ever heard a fire bell boom out in the stillness, you willremember the terror which clutched your heart at the first ominous peal.It seemed to Billie, in going over it afterward, that the boom of thatbig fire bell was like the last trump on the day of judgment arousingthe spirits of the dead.
Then came the sound of voices. The corridors were filled with hurryingfootsteps. Somebody ran down the hallway calling again:
"Fire! Fire!"
Billie jumped to the floor with a bound. Her senses had returned atlast.
"Nancy, Nancy!" she cried, shaking her friend violently back toconsciousness. "The hotel is on fire. Get into your dressing gown asquickly as you can while I wake up the others."
As she switched on the light she saw that the room was filled withsmoke, and she knew the fire must be in their wing of the hotel and thatthere was no time to lose.
There is no better fire trap in the world than a wooden hotel at theseaside. The salt from the flying spray in winter storms has seasonedthe wood into splendid burning material, and the breeze from the oceanfans the flames like a great natural bellows.
As Billie waked the other girls Miss Campbell came into the room, with awhite, scared face. But she was not excited.
"Get into your dressing gowns, girls," she said quietly. "Don't lose amoment's time. The boys are waiting for us outside."
Just then Ben Austen rattled on the door.
"Hurry," he called. "The elevators won't run much longer and the stairsare burning."
Hardly two minutes had passed since the first clang of the bell whenMiss Campbell and the girls joined the boys in the corridor. There hadnot been time even to snatch up a hair-pin from the bureau to catchtumbled locks together. But nobody looked at any one else. The place wascrowded with hotel guests in exactly the same condition and all thepassages opening into the main corridor of the hotel were emptyingthemselves of streams of people in every state of disarray. If it hadbeen less serious, the girls might have laughed at the numbers ofterrified and hysterical fat women, wrapping insufficient dressing gownsand blankets about their large forms as they pushed their way withoutceremony toward the elevators.
But a big tongue of flame suddenly leapt up the stairwell at the end ofthe hall. There was a crackling sound and clouds of black smoke pouredinto the corridor.
"We must get out of this," exclaimed Ben. "The fire has reached thisfloor and unless we knock a few people down, we'll never get to eitherof those elevators."
"But where are the fire escapes?" demanded Miss Campbell.
"At the end of the hall," answered Charlie, "and we could never get pastthat burning pit."
The two elevators had been up and down several times, packed withpeople. The smoke was growing thicker each moment, and the next thingBillie remembered was that Elinor had fainted dead away, and that someone had screamed:
"The elevators have stopped running!"
In the stifling atmosphere she saw Ben and Charlie lift Elinor and callto the others to follow them into a bedroom. As she staggered afterthem, a grotesque figure, screaming hysterically, fought through thecrowd, almost knocking Billie down. Even in that moment of danger sherecognized Belle Rogers, every lock of whose golden hair was done up onred rubber curlers, the ends of which stuck straight up like scores oflittle devils' horns.
"Take me down! Take me down!" Billie heard her scream. "I will not diein this horrible way! Somebody save me!"
Billie touched her on the shoulder.
"Don't scream," she said. "It only makes things worse. The people whoare left are going to get down by the windows. Come with us."
Belle, who had been separated from her friends, followed quietly enough.
In another moment the corridor was empty, and the flames which had beenfast eating their way along the hall had reached the elevator shafts. Ithad all happened in much less time than it takes to tell, but in thebrief instant when Billie had paused to rescue Belle, she lost theothers. Once in a bedroom, where the air was not so stifling, it wasimpossible to leave and rush again into the atmosphere outside.
The two girls dashed into the nearest room and closed the door, toostifled to notice that the others, led by level-headed Ben and followedby the crowd of people left standing by the elevator shafts, had rushedinto a front room at the end of the hall. In the closets of this roomand the one adjoining, they found two fire ropes which thisold-fashioned hotel provided for its guests whose rooms were not locatednear the fire escapes. Those who were not able to slide down the ropeswere lowered in a chair, and the others, with a foot twisted around therope and grasping a wet towel to keep the palm of the hand fromblistering, slid down. In the darkness it was impossible to recognizefaces, and it was not until they were all safe on the ground that theymissed Billie Campbell.
Then poor Miss Campbell, who had been admirably calm during the wholefearful experience, fainted away, and Elinor, now entirely restored bythe fresh air, was left to take care of her.
Nancy and Mary followed the four boys to the rescue. Tears were rollingdown Nancy's cheeks and Mary was as pale as death. Each girl had her ownpeculiar way of showing how much she had come to love their new friend,Billie.
In the meantime, Billie, herself, was looking ruefully down into thedarkness from the window of a room on the third floor and Belle wasindulging in a fit of real hysterics.
"How dare you bring me here?" she screamed hoarsely, stamping her foot."I might have been saved if you had let me alone, and here we aretrapped! I always hated you and now I detest you with my whole soul."
"I thought the others were in here," said Billie apologetically.
"Thought! Thought!" screamed the wretched girl. "You wanted me to die.You wanted me to lose my beauty."
"You haven't any to lose just now," answered Billie. "You look more likethe Medusa of the snaky locks----"
"Oh, oh!" wept Belle, too angry to articulate.
"You may console yourself this much," went on Billie. "If you die, Ishall die with you, but I am going to do my best to save you and myself,too."
"Help! Help!" screamed Belle from the window, not taking any notice. Buther voice was lost in the wild clamor which came up from below.
Then she flung herself flat on the floor in an agony of sobs.
"It's better to pray than to cry, Belle. Crying won't help and we are ina pretty warm place. If you were only a sport, it might do a lot ofgood."
Belle crawled to the window and leaned out. The air in the room wasbecoming unbearable.
In the meantime, Billie's thoughts were working rapidly. There were thesheets, but there wasn't time to tear them into strips and knot thestrips together. Besides, she didn't believe they would reach halfway tothe ground.
"I am afraid we'll have to climb it," she said.
"Climb what?"
"Climb up the side of the shutter to the roof. This is the top floor.The flames haven't reached the roof yet."
"But what good will the roof do us?"
"I don't know yet, but it's better than this. Come on."
"I tell you I can't climb. I never did such a thing in my life."
"You'll just have to begin then," said Billie sternly. "Shall I gofirst, or would you rather do it?"
"I'll go--no, you go."
"I'll help you," said Billie, hoisting herself to the window ledge."Now, don't look down. Just imagine you are only a few feet from theground and that it's a very easy stunt. If you decide beforehand thatyou can't do it, why, of course, you can't. But it will be much easierthan staying here to be burned alive in the next few minutes."
Delivering herself of this boyish but unimpeachable logic, Billie kickedoff her slippers and swung herself onto the shutter. Just for one briefinstant a sickening nausea came over her as she looked down into thedarkness.
Then her fingers grasped the cornice of the roof and, pulling herself upwith her two arms, as she had learne
d to do on the parallel bars in thegymnasium--only in this instance the shutter made a very uncertain elbowrest--she scrambled onto the roof.
"All right, Belle," she called. "It's much easier than I thought. Takeoff your slippers and come ahead, and don't forget to look up and notdown."
Belle obeyed in sullen silence. She was as determined as Billie not tobe burned alive, but her luxurious and self-indulgent nature revoltedagainst this uncomfortable and dangerous method of getting out of thedifficulty. However, there was nothing else to do, so she swung out onthe shutter as Billie had done, only this time Billie, with all thestrength in her body was holding the shutter rigid.
As Belle clung on with her hands and her little pink toes, which she hadstuck into the interstices of the shutter, she suddenly looked down. Hergrasp weakened and she gave a shriek so piercing that Billie almostslipped headlong over the side of the roof, but she grasped Belle'sslackening wrist.
"Take a breath," she said, in a trembling voice. "You can do it, if youonly make up your mind to."
"I'll never, never forgive you," cried Belle, "and if I live throughto-night, I'll pay you back."
"All right," answered Billie calmly, seeing all at once that angerappeared to give Belle new strength, "only I advise you to get onto thisroof first."
Another moment and Belle had clambered over the cornice and wasstretched out breathless on the roof.
"I would much rather have had a baby to look after," thought Billie, asshe looked contemptuously down at the other girl.
"We had better not lose any more time now, Belle," she said aloud. "Ifyou have got your breath and your nerve back, come ahead."
Belle pulled herself wearily up and followed.
"My feet are all splinters," she complained, "and my hands are torn andbleeding."
"'Tis the voice of the lobster: I heard him declare 'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair,'"
repeated Billie, half laughing and half sobbing that this foolish verseshould have flashed through her brain at this strange time.
The two girls hurried along the roof toward the front. It was plain thatin the scramble to save the lives of the hotel guests there had been notime to save the building, and when the young girls turned the corner ofthe roof and looked for a moment across the broad expanse of ocean not ahundred yards away it seemed to them that they were alone in the wholeworld.
"What are we going to do now?" demanded Belle.
"I don't know yet," answered Billie patiently.
The roof was hot under her feet and they could hear the crackling offlames as they hastened along the edge to the other side.
The rest of that fearful adventure seemed like a dream to Billieafterwards.
As they turned the corner of the house a voice called hoarsely:
"Who can tie a rope?"
Billie remembered to have replied vaguely and politely that she couldtie a rope. A man emerged from behind the chimney with a long rope, butshe hardly noticed at the time that he had only one arm.
"It may not be long enough," he said, "but tie it and we'll take therisk. It's our only chance."
Billie knotted the rope around the chimney. The man examined the knotcarefully, pulled it with his one hand, and then threw it over the sideof the house.
"I'll go first," said Belle quietly, and Billie looked at her withamazement.
"Humph!" said the man. "You are brave. Can you do it?"
"Yes," answered Belle, "I can do anything. Help me over the side."
"It's going to hurt," he observed, as he twisted the rope around herfoot and showed her how to slide down. "It's going to take all the skinoff your hands and feet and maybe cut to the bone."
Belle made no reply to this cheerful prediction. She had already starteddown the rope.
As Billie watched her disappear in the dark, the man said abruptly:
"Did a number of girls and a white-haired woman in a red automobile comehere this evening?"
Billie hesitated.
"I believe so," she said.
"Do you know so?" asked the man insistently.
"Yes."
"Did you see one of them leave a rosewood box at the clerk's desk?"
Billie made a great effort to remember. Then, suddenly, the case ofjewels loomed up in her mind. She had forgotten all about them.
"Billie, Billie," called a voice from below.
"Yes," she answered, looking over the roof.
"She's here," shouted Ben, from the top of the ladder, which reachedonly to the second story.
"All right," called the one-armed man on the roof. "We have a rope here.We'll swing down to the ladder."
The next thing Billie remembered she was surrounded by a crowd of herfriends at the foot of the ladder. The girls were weeping and her CousinHelen was giving vent to hysterical expressions of relief andthankfulness. The wet sand felt cool and soft to the parched soles ofher bare feet, and she tried to smile; but she really had quiteforgotten what it was all about. Some one close by her groaned andsobbed alternately, and a sickening feeling came over her when she saw agirl stretched on a blanket almost at her feet. The girl's hands weretorn and bleeding and her pale blue silk kimono was covered with blood.Down one cheek was a long, bloody mark and to complete her grotesque andterrible aspect, at least a dozen little red rubber devils' horns stoodupright all over her head.
The next thing Billie remembered was huddling into her own beloved redmotor car with the others, while some one took them somewhere, and allthe time in her ears she heard a man's voice saying:
"Where is that box of jewels?"
And her own voice replied:
"Under the ruins of the Shell Island Hotel."