"Maryam Effendi! Maryam Effendi! Elle est là, elle est là! Sauvez le--Sauvez le----"
He would have been at a loss even to grasp the last words had not a figure shown at that moment on the roof of the burning house. It was the figure of a tall woman in white and the flare of the flames showed that she carried a baby in her arms.
"My God!" he muttered under his breath, for there seemed no possibility of escape.
"Maryam Effendi! Maryam Effendi!" wailed the crowd, adding in mixed French and Turkish--"She has the child! Ah, the brave woman! She has the child!"
Aye, she had it, and she meant to hold it, too! A brave woman indeed! Pausing for a second in her perilous effort to pass from one roof to the other, she pulled off her veil, wrapped it round the child, and knotted it high above her shoulders. Then, hands and knees, set herself to her task. But the flames were almost too quick for her. And forked tongues licked at her feet; the next instant she was beyond them and, straightening herself, walked rapidly over a level strip. And now from below, where even Marmaduke stood arrested, helpless, watching another's fight for life, came a soft wail of horror. The last house had caught fire from below, the flames were surging upwards, the thin shingle roof might be gone any moment.
"Jump, for God's sake, jump!" cried Marmaduke, his voice vibrant with awful dread. "Jump, we'll catch you, somehow!"
Even as he spoke he felt the uselessness of his appeal to one who could not understand.
"Tell her to jump--we'll catch her!" he added dully, knowing there was no time, for already ominous crackings rose from the flames that mounted higher and higher.
But that familiar voice had reached the ears of the woman clinging her way for dear life, and tightened her hold upon the ridge-pole that was her only hope. No, she would not die yet! She would not die with that voice in her ears!
A faint shudder came from the crowd below as, with a crash, the roof fell in. A fainter moan of relief followed, as the woman with her pack still showed standing on the crossway beam of a balcony that overhung the water. A great tongue of flame shot out at her, but at the instant she raised her joined hands above her head and dived--a flash of white lit up by the red flare--into deep water.