“In our shop?” asked Martin, in amazement.
“Ay, about two o’clock this morning. I woke out of my sleep feeling I was choking, and the place was full of smoke. I roused the master. We couldn’t get downstairs, so we had to climb through the garret window and along a gutter-pipe to the roof next door. How we did it, Heaven alone knows, and I wouldn’t venture it again for a thousand pounds.”
“What caused the fire?”
“Who knows? ’Tis my belief——”
But at this moment there was a cry of “Make way for the Lord Mayor!” People pushed this way and that, and in the commotion Martin was torn from the man’s side and swept along the street. It was hopeless to attempt to reach him again, or to take a direct course for home, and Martin allowed himself to drift on the tide.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
WHAT SUSAN FOUND
The circular movement of the crowd brought Martin in time to a point where he was able to see how swiftly the fire was spreading. The houses at the end of London Bridge were ablaze. Between the bridge and Fishmongers’ Hall was a warren of dilapidated timber houses intersected by narrow alleys. Into those passages the strong wind bore sparks and blazing fragments; the dry wood easily caught fire, and it was evident that the whole district would soon be a furnace.
And now the inhabitants, at first careless spectators, were seized with panic fear, and in desperate haste began to move their goods and furniture from the doomed houses. From every door they sallied forth, laden with every article they could carry. There was a fierce demand for trucks and carts; some people hastened downhill to the riverside, and besought the aid of the watermen in conveying their goods out of harm’s way.