“Ah!” cries an on-looker, “the fire boys are coming!”
“Too late, they are,” growls another; “too late, as usual.”
The engine approaches; and from the opposite direction comes a man, running swiftly, panting heavily, almost breathless.
The roof is all ablaze now; in a moment the rafters will have fallen in.
The panting new-comer stops suddenly before the door of the burning tenement, and glances sharply about. Near him is a half-dazed woman who has rushed to the rescue, as frightened women will, with a pail of water in her unsteady hand. The man leaps toward her, seizes the pail, dashes its contents over his head and shoulders, and plunging through the doorway, disappears up the stairs.
“Stop! Come back!”
“What a fool!”
“That’s the end of him!”
The on-lookers shout and scream. Exclamations, remonstrance, pity, ridicule—all find voice, and are all lost upon the daring adventurer among the flames.
The engine rushes up; the firemen spring to their work: useless effort. Nobody thinks of them, or what they do; all eyes are on the blazing upper story, all thoughts for the man who is braving the flames.