“We might get on the roof now, Mr Braidwood,” suggested Dale, touching his helmet as he addressed the well-known chief of the London Fire-Engine Establishment.
“Not yet, Dale, not yet,” said Braidwood; “get inside and see if you can touch the fire through the drawing-room floor. It’s just fallen in.”
Dale and his men at once entered the front door of the building, dragging the branch and hose along with them, and were lost in smoke.
Previous to the arrival of the fire-engines, however, a scene had been enacted which Willie Willders had not witnessed. A fire-escape was first to reach the burning house. This was then, and still is, usually the case, owing to the fact that escapes are far more numerous in London than engines, so that the former, being always close at hand, often accomplish their great work of saving life before the engines make their appearance.
The escape in the immediate neighbourhood of Beverly Square was under the charge of Conductor Samuel Forest, a man who, although young, had already saved many lives, in the service of the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire.
When Forest reached the field of action, Mr James Auberly was seen at an upper window in a state of undignified dishabille, shouting for help, and half suffocated with smoke, with Mrs Rose hanging round his neck on one side and Matty Merryon at the other. Poor Auberly, having tried the staircase on the first alarm, was driven back by smoke, and rushed wildly to the window, where the two domestics, descending in terror from their attic, clung to him and rendered him powerless.
Forest at once pitched his escape—which was just a huge scientifically-constructed ladder, set on wheels. The head of it reached to the windows of the second floor. By pulling a rope attached to a lever, he raised a second ladder of smaller size, which was fitted to the head of the large one. The top of this second ladder was nearly sixty feet from the ground, and it reached the window at which Mr Auberly was still shouting. Forest at once sprang up.
“Leave me; save the women,” gasped Auberly, as a man entered the room, but the dense smoke overpowered him as he spoke, and he fell forward. The women also sank to the ground.
Forest instantly seized Mrs Rose in his powerful arms, and hurrying down the ladder to the top of the escape, put her into the canvas trough or sack which was suspended below the ladder all the way. Down this she slid somewhat violently but safely to the ground, while Forest ran up again and rescued Matty in the same way. Mr Auberly was more difficult to manage, being a heavy man, and his rescuer was almost overpowered by the thick smoke in the midst of which all this was done. He succeeded, however, but fainted on reaching the ground.
It was at this point that the first engine arrived, and only a few minutes elapsed when the second made its appearance, followed by the cab from which the young man leapt with the exclamation of surprise and alarm that had astonished Willie Willders.