“Pitch over blankets!” roared Giles, as the youth gained a window of the first floor, and dashed it in.
“The donkey-cart!” shouted Welland, in reply, and disappeared.
Giles was quick to understand. He dragged—almost lifted—the donkey and cart on to the pavement under the window where Mr Twitter stood waving his hands and yelling. The poor man had evidently lost his reason for the time, and was fit for nothing. A hand was seen to grasp his neck behind, and he disappeared. At the same moment a blanket came fluttering down, and Welland stood on the window-sill with Mrs Twitter in his arms, and a sheet of flame following. The height was about thirty feet. The youth steadied himself for one moment, as if to take aim, and dropped Mrs Twitter, as he might have dropped a bundle. She not only went into the vegetable cart, with a bursting shriek, but right through it, and reached the pavement unhurt—though terribly shaken!
Four minutes had not yet elapsed. The crowd had thickened, and a dull rumbling which had been audible for half a minute increased into a mighty roar as the fiery-red engine with its brass-helmeted heroes dashed round the corner, and pulled up with a crash, seeming to shoot the men off. These swarmed, for a few seconds, about the hose, water plug, and nozzles. At the same instant the great fire-escape came rushing on the scene, like some antediluvian monster, but by that time Giles had swept away the débris of the donkey-cart, with Mrs Twitter imbedded therein, and had stretched the blanket with five powerful volunteers to hold it. “Jump, sir, jump!” he cried. Samuel Twitter jumped—unavoidably, for Welland pushed him—just as the hiss and crackle of the water-spouts began.
He came down in a heap, rebounded like india-rubber, and was hurled to one side in time to make way for one of his young flock.
“The children! the children!” screamed Mrs Twitter, disengaging herself from the vegetables.
“Where are they?” asked a brass-helmeted man, quietly, as the head of the Escape went crashing through an upper window.
“The top floor! all of ’em there!—top flo–o–o–r!”
“No—no–o–o! some on the second fl–o–o–or!” yelled Mr Twitter.
“I say top—floo–o–o–r,” repeated the wife.