“He is safe,” I answered. “So are the women. Save yourself!”
He glanced at the thickening smoke and sniffed the air with distended nostrils.
“They are going to burn us out,” he said; and even as he spoke a tongue of yellow flame licked the bottom of the stair.
Then the wounded wretches stretched upon it understood the fate in store for them. Their shrieks redoubled; but now there were prayers mingled with the curses. My heart turned sick within me as I looked at them.
“Come!” I urged, and plucked at my companion’s sleeve.
This time he nodded, and I sprang up the stair. He followed at my heels.
“Here we are,” I said, and paused at the open window.
He motioned me to precede him. I sprang to the sill, seized the cord and slid to the ground so rapidly that it burnt into my fingers; but I scarcely felt the pain. In a moment Pasdeloup stood beside me.
“This way,” he said; and without an instant’s hesitation led the way toward a thicket near the tower. We plunged into it without stopping to look back and pushed our way forward until we came to a little eminence bare of trees. Here we paused to take breath.
The dawn was just tinging the eastern sky, but across the cold, grey light there burst suddenly a mighty finger of flame. It was the tower, blazing like a monster torch; and I shuddered as I thought of the fate of the wretches who had perished there.