As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying,he was horror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lower windows.It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows,also,and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward along the side of the house.The man shrieked Fire!Fire!with all his might,and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to Maurice's room and save him.He penetrated but a short distance when,blinded and choking with the smoke,he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry of despair that roused every man,woman,and child within reach of a human voice.Out they came from their houses in every quarter of the village.The shout of Fire!Fire!was the chief aid lent by many of the young and old.Some caught up pails and buckets:the more thoughtful ones filling them;the hastier snatching them up empty,trusting to find water nearer the burning building.
Is the sick man moved?
This was the awful question first asked,--for in the little village all knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house.The attendant,white as death,pointed to the chamber where he had left him,and gasped out,"He is there!"A ladder!A ladder!was the general cry,and men and boys rushed off in search of one.But a single minute was an age now,and there was no ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes.The sick man was going to be swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive.Some were going for a blanket or a coverlet,in the hope that the young man might have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caught in it.The attendant shook his head,and said faintly,"He cannot move from his bed."One of the visitors at the village,--a millionaire,it was said,--a kind-hearted man,spoke in hoarse,broken tones:
"A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!"The fresh-water fisherman muttered,"I should like to save the man and to see the money,but it ain't a thaousan'dollars,nor ten thaousan'dollars,that'll pay a fellah for burnin'to death,--or even chokin'to death,anyhaow."The carpenter,who knew the framework of every house in the village,recent or old,shook his head.
"The stairs have been shored up,"he said,"and when the fists that holds 'em up goes,down they'll come.It ain't safe for no man to go over them stairs.Hurry along your ladder,--that's your only chance."All was wild confusion around the burning house.The ladder they had gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off for the workmen who were shingling his roof.It would never get there in time.There was a fire-engine,but it was nearly half a mile from the lakeside settlement.Some were throwing on water in an aimless,useless way;one was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe:it seemed like doing something,at least.But all hope of saving Maurice was fast giving way,so rapid was the progress of the flames,so thick the cloud of smoke that filled the house and poured from the windows.Nothing was heard but confused cries,shrieks of women,all sorts of orders to do this and that,no one knowing what was to be done.The ladder!The ladder!Five minutes more and it will be too late!
In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo,and he had stopped his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that in which they had stood in his apartment,and followed in the direction of the sound,little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burning house."Some chimney afire,"he said to himself;but he would go and take a look,at any rate.
Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death,two young women,in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect,had suddenly joined the throng."The Wonder"and "The Terror"of their school-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just come from the shore,where they had left their wherry.A few hurried words told them the fearful story.Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamber to which every eye was turned,unable to move,doomed to a dreadful death.All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocation rather than by the flames,which would soon be upon him.The man who had attended him had just tried to reach his chamber,but had reeled back out of the door,almost strangled by the smoke.A thousand dollars had been offered to any one who would rescue the sick man,but no one had dared to make the attempt;for the stairs might fall at any moment,if the smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they fell.
The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment.
"How can he be reached?"asked Lurida."Is there nobody that will venture his life to save a brother like that?""I will venture mine,"said Euthymia.
"No!no!"shrieked Lurida,--"not you!not you !It is a man's work,not yours!You shall not go!Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theories in this supreme moment.But Euthymia was not to be held back.Taking a handkerchief from her neck,she dipped it in a pail of water and bound it about her head.Then she took several deep breaths of air,and filled her lungs as full as they would hold.She knew she must not take a single breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it,and Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long that more than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come up again.So rapid were her movements that they paralyzed the bystanders,who would forcibly have prevented her from carrying out her purpose.Her imperious determination was not to be resisted.And so Euthymia,a willing martyr,if martyr she was to be,and not saviour,passed within the veil that hid the sufferer.
