"Dear Marion! there are crowds giving assistance! He must have escaped," said Agnes, in trembling accents. "I feel certain he has escaped. He has surely heard the noise, and called for help!"
A dense mass of persons round the crashing house, wild with agitation, and vehement in their attitudes and gestures, prevented the carriage from advancing farther; but Marion instantly opened the door, sprang out, and with an impetuosity which nothing could resist, rushed onwards. She was not one whose faculties could be prostrated by terror or danger; for it was then that her quick judgment and generous spirit became most active; and while crowds were standing around, in vacant, helpless wonder, she reached the spot where a tottering ladder had been placed against the walls, and where the engines were playing upon the blazing roofs, while flames spouted forth in every direction, and a confused din of cries and vociferous oaths became audible on every side.
Timid and easily frightened on slight occasion, all emotion now appeared to be dead within the breast of Marion, who paused, while, with bloodless cheek, and a face as rigid as death, she seemed turned into stone; yet every word whispered around fell with frightful distinctness on her ear.
"The last house that caught fire is uninhabited, I believe?" asked a stranger, calmly. "I am informed that the whole conflagration was raised by a madman—a perfect Guy Fawkes, who afterwards escaped. There are crowds of servants belonging to the heiress Miss Howard, and he had some scheme of carrying her off; but most mercifully she and her attendants were all saved."
"Very fortunate indeed, as the stair-case is now falling in," added another, while crash followed crash in frightful succession. "Some one talked of a blind gentleman being there, but that is probably a picturesque addition, to give the story interest, for that tall house seems really empty."
At this moment, a low murmur of grief and horror arose among the crowd, followed by a death-like silence. In a part of the building high above what had yet been consumed by the flames, though already undermined, the shutters of a window were slowly opened, the sash hastily thrown open, and the venerable figure of Sir Arthur appeared there, his grey hair streaming in the wind, and his head stretched forward in the act of listening. He raised his hand to his forehead, as if bewildered, and seemed evidently calling for help; but his feeble voice was lost amid the war of elements, the crackling and blazing of all around, and the loud crash of falling timber.
No one had a hope of his being rescued, and the most selfishly indifferent looked on with breathless dismay, while Agnes threw herself on the grass in an agony of horror and despair; but Marion rapidly grasped her hand with convulsive energy, saying, in a low deep whisper, "I shall save him, or die with him."
Using the speed of thought she flew forward, while every voice was raised in loud shouts to stop her; and several persons, as soon as they became aware of Marion's rash intentions, followed vehemently in pursuit, determined to force her back; but eluding their grasp, she wrapped her large cloak around her, and ascended the crackling beams of the staircase, beneath a shower of glowing sparks, while blazing flames were running round the cornices and ceiling, with a sound like incessant thunder.
The smoke nearly blinded her—the smell of burning wood became suffocating—and the heat was nearly unbearable. Long wreaths of fire and smoke soon shut Marion out from the view of those who followed, and none could pursue with their eyes the fearful progress of her enterprise, while she hurried onwards, having one only thought in her heart, that Sir Arthur, blind and alone, was calling for help, and might yet perhaps be saved. A wooden gallery, leading from the stair to Sir Arthur's room, though fringed with an intense and devouring flame, which had almost entirely burned it away, showed yet a plank remaining close to the wall, charred and blackened, while shrivelling and crackling in the devouring element. Over this Marion quickly but cautiously glided; and opening the Admiral's door, she tried to compose her voice, saying in a clear, distinct tone—
"I am here, uncle Arthur! come away quickly! give me your hand!"