They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning Sunday tinkle.
In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting.
"Yes—the fire-engine—is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once—at once——"
"Jawohl, jawohl," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and the men are at supper."
"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and tell them so—look how terrible it is getting——"
"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is the Schloss."
"Oh, go yourself and tell the men—see, there is no sign of them—every minute is priceless——"
"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them."
The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help from the anxious bell.
Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind friend?