"And a moment later he had carried her safely through the flames."
Then he went back to close the door. It was high time, for the last obstructing logs of the old barricade had fallen and the chamber was a seething mass of fire.
"I feel pretty rotten," reflected Coquenil with a whimsical smile. "My hair is burned off and my eyebrows are gone and about half my skin, but—I guess I'll take a chance on a burn or two more and rescue Esmeralda!"
Whereupon he reached up inside that fiery furnace and, groping over the hot stone shelf, brought down a scorched and battered and dust-covered little figure that had lain there for many years.
It was the lost dolly!