Suddenly there appeared, from no one knew exactly where, a little pale-faced man with sandy whiskers. He wore overalls and was hatless. A woman, a white-faced woman, clung to his arm desperately.
“No, Eben,” she kept screaming, “not you, too! Not you, too!”
“Let me go, Jane!” the pallid little man kept shouting in reply. “It’s our baby, we’ve got to get him out!”
He made a struggle toward the blazing building, but the woman clung to him frenziedly. Now a fireman rushed at him and added his strength to the woman’s.
“Great Scotland,” gasped Merritt, who stood next to Rob, “it’s old Duffy, the janitor, and his wife!”
“What is it?” cried Rob, without replying, as a fireman hastened past him. “What’s the matter?”
“Her baby. She’s left it in the ’cademy,” came the choking answer. The man, whose face was white with helpless horror, hurried on to obey some order, while a shudder of sympathy and fear ran through the crowd. Now came more details as men hastened back and forth. The woman, thinking that her husband had the baby, had rushed from the house at the first alarm. For his part, old Duffy, the janitor, never dreaming that the fire would gain such rapid headway, had tried to fight it alone, thinking all the time that his wife had the infant. The true situation had just been discovered and the man was frantic to get back into the place although he was a semi-invalid, known to suffer with heart disease.
The flames were leaping up more savagely every minute. For all the effect that the feeble dribble supplied by the bucket brigade had, they might as well have given up their efforts.
Rob felt his heart give a bound as he watched the janitor and his wife kindly, but firmly, forced back.
His pulses throbbed wildly. He gave one look at the red inferno before him. Then,—