"Oh, passon! de Lawd ain't willin' fer two ter die."
The negro women clung about him, but he shook them off; going hastily forward, he broke in the door and disappeared. His moment's prayer had been for his wife, in the case—which he knew was probable—that he should not come from that door alive.
The gap he had made revealed the red fire within; behind the stairs the back of the wing was a glowing furnace.
The negroes now all knelt down, they had no hope; they began to sing their funeral hymn.
The fire had reached the second story; Margaret's face had disappeared.
A bravery which does not reason will sometimes conquer in the teeth of reason. One chance existed, it was one amid a dozen probabilities of a horrible death; it lay in swiftness, and in the courage to walk, without heeding burned feet, directly across floors already in a glow.
Middleton Moore crossed such floors; he went unshrinkingly up the scorching stairs. He found Margaret by sense of touch in the smoke-filled room above, and tearing off his coat, he lifted her as she lay unconscious, wrapped her head and shoulders in it, and bore her swiftly down the burning steps, and through the fiery hall, and so out to the open air. His eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair were singed, his face was blistered; brands and sparks had fallen like hail upon his shoulders and arms, and scorched through to the skin; his boots were burned off, the curled leather was dropping from his burned feet; his breath was almost gone.
He gave Margaret to the women, and sank down himself upon the grass; he could not see, he felt very weak; something was tightening in his throat. The boy Primus, with great sobs, ran like a deer to the well for water, and bringing it back, held a cupful to the lips of the blinded man.
Margaret, though still unconscious, appeared to be unhurt. The skirt of her dress was burned in several places. The women chafed her hands, and bathed her face with the fresh water; once she opened her eyes, but unconsciousness came over her again.
With a crash the northern wing fell in.