Martin caught a strange look on the Frenchman’s face as he left the room to return to his own apartment.
“When you’ve eat your fill, Martin,” said Susan, “you’d better go to sleep. The blackamoor child has dropped off already, poor lamb!”
Martin lay down on his bed, but he found it impossible to sleep. His brain whirled with thoughts of the Fire, and the barge, and the Santa Maria; of Slocum, and Blackbeard, and the rest; and in spite of Susan’s confidence the mere suggestion that the Fire might spread to their own house and swallow it up filled him with alarm. He could not bear to think that the Gollops might presently be among the thousands of families that had lost their all.
Presently he could not endure inaction any longer. He sprang up.
“I am going out,” he said. “I must see for myself where the Fire has got to. I won’t be very long.”
At the top of the stairs he banged into Gollop, red-faced and panting through haste.
“Bless my eyes! Here’s a wonder!” gasped the man.
“What is it? Has the Fire got to us?” said Martin.
“The Fire! What’s the Fire to you? Martin, my lad, never did I think I’d live to see this day.”
“Tell me—what is it?” asked Martin in wonder.