“Is there a rope in the garret?” asked Sam eagerly.
“No—nothink o’ the kind,” gasped Tommy.
“No sheets,—blankets?” asked the Scot.
“Only two or three,” replied Susan, who supported Liz in the rustic chair. “They’re much worn, and not enough to reach near the ground.”
It was no time for useless talk. The two men said no more, but sprang on the parapet outside the garden, to find, if possible, a way of escape by the roofs of the neighbouring houses. The sight they beheld was sufficiently appalling. The fire which raged below them cast a noonday glare over the wilderness of chimney-stacks around, revealing the awful nature of their position, and, in one direction, thousands of upturned faces. The men were observed as they ran along the parapet, and a deep hoarse cry from the sympathetic multitude rose for a few moments above the roaring of the flames.
On two sides the walls of the building went sheer down, sixty feet or more, without a break, into a yard which bristled with broken wood and old lumber. Evidently death faced them in that direction. The third side was the gable-end of the garret. On the fourth side there was a descent of twelve feet or so on to the roof of the next block, which happened to be lower—but that block was already in flames.
“There is our chief hope,” said the sailor, pointing to it.
“Nay,” responded Laidlaw in a low voice, pointing upwards—“oor main hope is there! I thocht they had fire-escapes here,” he added, turning to Tommy, who had joined them.
“So they ’ave, but no escape can be got down the yards ’ere. The halleys is too narrer.”
“Come, I’ll git a blankit to lower Susan and auld Liz,” said Laidlaw, hastening back to the garden, where the trembling women awaited the result of their inspection.