"I understand. We will escort this fellow to the Hotel de Condé, and then return."
My passion had exhausted itself by now; I could only stand bewailing the loss of my trusty friend. Meanwhile the crowd increased; soldiers appeared on the scene; men dashed buckets of water on the fire; some seized burning pieces of wood and flung them into the street where they could do no more mischief.
I toiled with the rest, and gradually we got the flames under, but there was no sign of Raoul's body. One man we found was quite dead, and no one recognised him. What had become of the others? Some had dashed down the stairway in front of me, but I had left Raoul and Henri, Pillot and his companion, nearly at the top. Where were they, if not buried beneath the smouldering débris of the fallen staircase?
Presently a roar of excitement came from the people behind me, and glancing towards the astrologer's house I beheld a man, hatless, bleeding, and scorched by the hungry flames, rush into the street.
A hubbub of voices at once arose.
"Bravo, monsieur!"
"That's one who was in the house!"
"He has saved one man's life!"
"See, his face is cut!"
At sight of him my heart for a moment stood still; then I called aloud "Raoul!" and, scattering the people right and left, ran, frantic with joy, toward the friend I had never again expected to meet alive.