“But how?” returned the peasants.
“I want somebody,” cried the General, “who will get up upon the roof of that shed, and cut away the principal support. The post will fall, and carry the roof with it.”
“Oh, yes!” said a voice; “and the somebody in question will go down with the roof!”
“Very likely!” acquiesced the General, calmly; “but the fire will be smothered, and the rest of the village saved.”
At that moment, a certain passage from “Emile” flashed across my mind.
“Give me an axe!” I cried. As I spoke, I saw one leaning against a house near which I was standing.
I laid down my “Emile” and a dictionary which M. Jean Baptiste had given me; seized the axe, and rushed into the house adjacent to the shed. Already its inmates were carrying out all their little property, expecting every instant that their cottage would be in flames.
Up the little wooden stairs I rushed, and scrambled out on the roof through a sort of trap-door.
It was my first experience upon roofs; but as I had been accustomed to climbing trees up to any height, a promenade on the thatch was only child’s play.
Below, all was hushed in anxiety. I could only hear the peculiar billow-like sounds of the flames, and the fall of the burning fragments as they gave way under the fire.