When London Burned : a Story of Restoration Times and the Great Fire

by G. A. Henty

"I fear the ladders are too short."

"I can tie two or three of them together," Wilkes said. "I am an old sailor and can answer for the knots."

The firemen were already dashing water on the lower windows of the front of the house. A party with axes were cutting at the door, but this was so massive and solid that it resisted their efforts. One of the gentlemen went down to them. At his orders eight or ten men seized ladders. Cyril snatched some ropes from a heap that had been thrown down by the firemen, and the party, with one of the gentlemen, ran round to the back of the house. Two ladders were placed against the wall. John Wilkes, running up one of them, hauled several of the others up, and lowered them into the garden.

The flames were now issuing from some of the upper windows. Cyril dropped from the wall into the garden, and, running close up to the house, shouted to three or four women, who were screaming loudly, and hanging so far out that he thought they would fall, that help was at hand, and that they would be speedily rescued. John Wilkes rapidly tied three of the short ladders together. These were speedily raised, but it was found that they just reached the window. One of the firemen ran up, while John set to work to prepare another long ladder. As there was no sign of life at any other window he laid it down on the grass when finished.

"If you will put it up at the next window," Cyril said, "I will mount it. The woman said there were children in the house, and possibly I may find them. Those women are so frightened that they don't know what they are doing."

One woman had already been got on to the other ladder, but instead of coming down, she held on tightly, screaming at the top of her voice, until the fireman with great difficulty got up by her side, wrenched her hands from their hold, threw her across his shoulder, and carried her down.

The room was full of smoke as Cyril leapt into it, but he found that it was not, as he had supposed, the one in which the women at the next window were standing. Near the window, however, an elderly woman was lying on the floor insensible, and three girls of from eight to fourteen lay across her. Cyril thrust his head out of the window.

"Come up, John," he shouted. "I want help."

He lifted the youngest of the girls, and as he got her out of the window, John's head appeared above the sill.

"Take her down quick, John," he said, as he handed the child to him. "There are three others. They are all insensible from the smoke."