Is the sick man moved?
This was the awful question first asked,—for in the little village all knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house. The attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had left him, and gasped out,
“He is there!”
A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed off in search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there was no ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man was going to be swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive. Some were going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the hope that the young man might have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caught in it. The attendant shook his head, and said faintly,
“He cannot move from his bed.”
One of the visitors at the village,—a millionaire, it was said,—a kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones:
“A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!”
The fresh-water fisherman muttered, “I should like to save the man and to see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan' dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,—or even chokin' to death, anyhaow.”
The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, recent or old, shook his head.
“The stairs have been shored up,” he said, “and when the fists that holds 'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go over them stairs. Hurry along your ladder,—that's your only chance.”