Reade and the crowd alike watched breathlessly, while Dave Darrin, fumbling, almost blindly, tried to slip the noose over his head and adjust it under his shoulders.
Once he let go of the rope, half swaying out into the street.
A cry of terror went up from the spectators below.
Tom Reade carefully swung the rope back again. Dave caught it. After it had seemed as though he must fail Dave at last adjusted the noose under his armpits.
"All right!" bellowed Tom Reade, making a trumpet of his hands.
Darrin answered only by a tug on the rope. Then he hung in mid air as the hoisting began.
At that moment a new sound cane on the air. The fire department, with a short circuit somewhere in its wires, had at last been notified by telephone, and the box number was pealing out on two church bells.
Barely were Dave's feet clear of the top of the window casing when a draught drove the flames out.
His shoes were almost licked by the red tongues.
"Hurry, you hoisters!" bellowed a man in the street.