I looked up at the statue of Commerce, which crowned the dome of the building. It seemed the final prize to which all the flames were leaping.
There was a great to-do going on on the farther side, but the building was large, and the space before it ample. The place was picketed by military, and every now and then some Government motor would dash up or roll away, bringing or carrying off military officials, police officials, and less glorious officials in mufti.
Upon the face of the building firemen were at work, pigmy people of no consequence beside the statue, who nevertheless seemed to be making a last stand like warriors driven to the corners of their country.
For the wind blew steadily, and every now and then sprang upon the great stone building in a squall, and the tops of the waves which held us where we were, would fly off in spray. And the fiery heart of the building would glow and redden and become fiercer, and the firemen would doubly toil at the hose, which looked like the dead body of some great sea-serpent lately come out of the river. Their backs would bend, and it would come after them ever so unwillingly. And other firemen, creeping about the grey face of the building upon their ladders, would peer at the molten heart through some gaping window, and direct tons of water within.
And then the wind would sigh and fall again, and the water roaring down upon some outwork of the conflagration would batter it to death; and a new wind springing up would blow like a giant’s bellows upon the quenched sparks, blow a new fury of destruction into them, and they would leap up again.
“Och, it’s a grander sight than the Post Office in Easter week.”
“It is, it is.”
Moving to and fro upon Butt Bridge, and moving up and down the quays, were Crossley tenders with their load of police. Now and then a gust of rage would seize those people, as indeed rage was consuming all Ireland now, the tender would awaken to a new pace and come running in the direction of the crowd, and a panic like a live thing, would seize us; we would start running and bunch up into the alleyways. The car would roll down to where we had been, and the men would lean over its armoured sides, shaking their guns and grinding their teeth, as if their dumb lips were shouting for the phantom enemy to come out of the crowd and give them battle. The car would back and turn, and roll up the quay towards the bridge again, and we would come out from our holes like rats.
“Indade, and it’s shooting ye they would be if ye was to look at them,” said a stout lady in a shawl, gazing up the quay after the departed enemy.
“It’s grand they look in them hats,” said her daughter of twenty, who had enjoyed the scuttle into covert, and was wiping her nose on her finger.