"He that shall endure," thought Connie. "To the end," darted through Ronald's mind; and just then both children heard an unmistakable and awful roar. Was it the roar of human voices or the roar of something else—a devouring and awful element? Connie turned white. Now, if ever, was the time to be brave.
"I'll open the winder and look out," she said.
She sprang towards it and, with a great effort, pushed it half up. The moment she did so, the noise from without came louder, and the noise from within was more deafening.
"Fire! fire!" shouted a multitude of people from below in the street; and "Fire! fire!" cried the frenzied inhabitants of the old tenement-house. Connie and Ronald were on the top story. Connie went back to Ronald.
"The house is on fire, Ronnie!" she said. "But we mustn't be frightened, either of us; we must think of the grand verse, and of what Big Ben said. Big Ben's an angel, you mind; Giles knows all about that."
"Oh yes," said Ronald, his teeth chattering; for the draught from the open window, although it relieved his breathing, made him intensely cold. "It's a beautiful verse, isn't it, Connie?" he continued.
"Yus," said Connie. "Let's get to the winder, Ronnie dear. We'll call out. There are people down in the street. The fire-engines 'ull be on in a minute; we'll be saved, in course."
"Oh, of course," said Ronnie. He staggered to the floor, and put his feet into his shoes. "A good thing I wasn't undressed," he said.
"Yus," said Connie. "Now, let's get to the winder."
The children staggered there. The smoke was getting more dense; the room was filling faster and faster with the horrible, blinding, suffocating thing. But at the window there was relief. Connie put out her head for a minute, and then quickly drew it back.