"Besides, they already have coats," she added.
"We'd better get out of this," Herl told Crawford, starting back across the cars.
"Yes," agreed the latter as he clambered up and over. "Better see what's happening downtown. Sounds drastic."
The pair ran on faster now. From ahead grew a trembling roar which swelled to a steady gentle thundering above which the alarm yapped and blatted. A ruddy glow silhouetted the bodies of the cars they were passing, and the center of the street was filling with runners. A few hundred yards brought them to where Herl could see the shape of the Civil Building and recognize the glow as fire spurting from the windows of the two top storeys.
They stopped on the outskirts of an immense crowd circling the building. Great streams of water shot aloft from immense hoses; but the streams wobbled and wavered in a hundred directions as the nozzles shifted everywhere but at the building itself. Herl and Crawford were drenched twice before they could get close enough to see that the hoses were being battled for by gangs of Eyefers against the sturdy teams of firemen. The shouting and roar of the fire were so deafening that Herl and the Commissioner were well into the crowd before the words were comprehensible.
"Let 'em burn! Let the records burn! Let 'em burn up!"
"The records!" Crawford gave out a kind of spluttering screech that made Herl turn in astonishment. "The records! My God! There won't be any laws ... any Eyefers ... any civilization if we lose the records!"
Herl thought the little man was going to faint, he trembled so violently. Then, suddenly, Crawford took a great gulping breath, wrenched himself from Herl's supporting grasp and, pushing his way through the massed bodies, made for the cordon keeping the onlookers out of the danger zone. Herl pressed after him but reached the front line only in time to see Crawford jumping sidewise fifty feet ahead to elude a fireman and dashing for the gaping mouth of the vehicle tunnel through the building. Herl followed on the double, pointing ahead at the disappearing figure of the Commissioner without trying to yell out his destination to the hindering firemen.
A greater shout went up as a piece of the stone cornice fell from the top of the building to the pavement below with the crash of nearby blasting. Severed sections of hose blatted forth powerful torrents that swept firemen and mob along the street into a line of cars. Herl dodged among writhing pythons of hose toward the tunnel. Another surging shout heralded another cataclysmic deed of fire; and Herl looked up to see a piece of wall about twenty feet high falling slowly away from the building above him.
He closed his eyes and dashed forward. He felt the tremendous jar of the smashing stone force him to his knees, but no sound ... in fact all sound had faded to utter stillness.