We sometimes hear of the ruling passion that is strong in death. Claire knew there was danger of her being crushed. But she had not lost her head, as the phrase goes. She could still prefer solitary extinction to the fate of being annihilated while in the embrace of Mr. John Slocumb.
He removed his arm. "All right," he muttered, "if you'd rather go it alone."
"I would, thank you," said Claire.
VI.
But, as it happened, they were not separated. The crowd, pouring down either staircase, soon thinned. There was better breathing-space, and a fairer chance as well, for the more demoralized to push and struggle. Slocumb kept close behind Claire. He warded off from her a number of desperate thrusts. She was not aware of these defensive tactics; she paid no further heed to her former champion; as her sense of danger lessened, the idea of re-meeting Josie took shape and strength. When the first step of the staircase was reached, she stumbled, and then regained herself. She had no suspicion, at this moment, what actually doughty work Slocumb was doing, just in her rear. He was a man of unusual muscular power, and, like not a few of his rough, pugnacious species, endowed with dogged physical courage. At sight Claire had keenly attracted him; her recent aversion had piqued him into liking her still more. If the occasion had grown one of sharper immediate jeopardy, it is by no means doubtful that he might have shown intrepid heroism as her rescuer. He was gross, coarse, unprincipled, but he had that quality of stubbornly defending what he liked which we often see in the finest of brutes and sometimes in the least fine of men.
Up to this time the prevailing affright had meant bitter ill to all whom it had seized. The threat of a hideous destruction had by no means passed when the crowd about Claire grew less dense; for not far behind her were two opposite streams of life that had met and were each destroying the other's progress by their very madness of encounter. Below stairs, and at one of the intermediate landings, numerous people had already been severely hurt; limbs had been broken, and acute injuries of other kinds had been dealt. The cries heard here and there were made as much by pain as fear.
But powers of good were working with ardor among the lower quarters of the building. A man had sprung forth upon the stage, and was imploring order amid the smoke which partly enveloped him, while at the same time he shouted to the multitude that the fire was now under perfect control. Two policemen and two ushers were abetting him further on, where neither his entreaties nor explanations could reach. Suddenly, with the same speed shown by the panic at its origin, an orderly lull was manifest in its haphazard turmoil. A few caught the sense of the cheering intelligence, and these spread it swiftly from tongue to tongue. At the moment when this change began to be clearly assertive, Claire and Slocumb had almost gained the last landing of the stairs. By the time they were in the lower part of the theatre, not a few persons who desired to air their bravery, now that safety seemed certain, were returning to their seats in dress-circle or parquette. "It's on'y a hoax, after all," said Slocumb. "There's a heap more scared nor hurt. S'pose we git upstairs again? Hey? What d'yer think?"
Claire shook her head. "No, I want to find Josie," she answered. "I don't care to go back. I think she will not, either."
"All right," said Slocumb; "jus' take my hook, an' we'll git out o' here, an' watch fur Jim an' her where they're mos' likely to be."