Then suddenly came a fearful cry. On the roof there had appeared the figure of Rob with a bundle which the crowd readily guessed to be the janitor’s child clasped tightly in his arms. The flames, leaping from the cupola, illumined his form brightly and showed his pale, tense face. Thwarted in his effort to descend by the stairway, Rob had managed to reach the roof through a scuttle.
“He’s done it! Hurrah! The boy’s saved the baby!” went up an ear-splitting cry from the unthinking in the crowd.
The others knew only too well that the reason that Rob had appeared on the roof betokened the terrible fact that his escape had been cut off. He was making a last desperate stand, with the flames drawing closer, and threatening to burst through the roof at any moment.
Every eye in that crowd was fixed on the solitary figure on the roof.
“Ladders! Get ladders,” yelled the foreman, hoping against hope that one could be found tall enough to reach to that height.
Rob came forward to the cornice, and looked over as if gauging the height. They saw him shake his head. Then he looked behind him. Alas, there, too, all hope of escape was cut off. Between himself and an iron fire-escape at the back of the building, tongues of flame were now shooting through the roof.
“He’s shouting something. Keep still, for heaven’s sake!” came Merritt’s voice suddenly.
A death-like silence followed. Then above the roar and crackle came a faint sound. It was Rob calling out some commands.
“A rope!—shoot it up here,” was all they could distinguish.
Merritt darted forward and stood below the walls.