“No, sir!” said the chief respectfully; “you can’t get in, now. We’ve saved all we could.”
“There are some things I must have. I can get at them. I’ve done this before. Let me in!” commanded the minister.
All the coherent thought he had at that moment was that he must save some of the pictures—Helen’s pictures that she had given to the people. In that shock of trouble they took on a delirious preciousness to him.
“Let me into my own chapel!” he thundered. But the chief put his hand upon the preacher’s breast, and held it there.
“Not another step, Mr. Bayard. The roof will fall in five minutes. Get back, sir!”
He heard his people calling him; strong hands took hold of him; pitying faces looked at him.
“Come, Mr. Bayard,” some one said gently. “Turn away with us. Don’t see it go.”
He protested no more, but obeyed quietly. For the first time since they had known him, he faltered, and broke before his people. They led him away, like a wounded man. He covered his face when the crash came. The sparks flew far and hot over the wharves, and embers followed. The water hissed as it received them.
At the first gray of dawn, the minister was on the ground again. Evidently he had not slept. There was a storm in the sky, and slow, large flakes of snow were falling. The crowd had gone, and the Alley was deserted. Only a solitary guardian of the ruins remained. Bayard stood before them, and looked up. Now, a singular thing had happened. The electric wire which fed the illuminated sign in front of the mission had not been disconnected by the fire; it had so marvelously and beautifully happened; only a few of the little colored glass globes had been broken, and four white and scarlet words, paling before the coming day, and blurring in the snow, but burning steadily, answered the smothered tongues of fire and lips of smoke which muttered from the ruins.