Ephraim’s weather-beaten face went ghastly white. For a moment his senses whirled. The next he was rushing madly into the very midst of the heated ruins, shrieking like one bereft:
“Jessica! Jessica! ‘Little Captain!’ Where are you? Oh! where are you?”
Strong hands forced him back.
“Old man have you lost your wits? Are you seeking death?”
“I shall be—in a minute—if—if—Oh! Has anybody, anybody, seen a little girl? A golden—haired, curly-headed little girl with the face of an angel? Has anybody—seen—my ‘Lady Jess’?”
“Take it calm, old man. Tell it again. A little girl? Is there a child missing? Was there a little girl in that old house? and where?”
“Oh! yes, yes! There was—there is—there must be! Where? How can I tell? We—we were sitting—talking—just as if—as if—Oh! my God! as if there was never any danger in the world, when that bell rang and that other child, that hump-backed flower one—Oh! Jessica, Jessica!”
He broke from his captors with the strength of frenzy and would have dashed headlong again to his own ruin, over that heap of flame and broken foundations, but again more hands and stronger held him back. Then somebody found voice to break again into that pregnant silence with the suggestion:
“Try the rear! The alley way! The stables! They haven’t gone yet—We may find—” But even that would-be hopeful voice did not say what they might find.
To the rear they rushed, where an engine and hose carriage still blocked the way, playing upon the scorched but yet standing stables, whence some thoughtful man had already led the blindfolded, frightened horses. Past these rushed Ephraim, a dozen at his heels. Through the singed alley gate into that ruined garden where the fallen beams and timbers lay thick and smoking.