“Dick! Dick, come back!” shrieked Trevor. Through the murk of smoke the edge of the staircase was outlined in writhing flames, and for an instant Trevor caught sight of Dick half-way up it. With a sob Trevor leaped toward the porch. But a strong hand seized him and brought him tumbling back to the ground.
“One of you’ll do,” said the marshal’s voice in his ear. “No use in your both being burned up.”
“But he’ll be killed!” cried Trevor, striking out savagely at his captor. “Let me go, you—you brute! Can’t you understand? Dick will be killed!” But he was forced, struggling, gasping, sobbing, down the walk.
“Barnes!” bellowed the marshal’s voice, “there’s a boy up there. This youngster will tell you about it. Get your ladder quick!”
[CHAPTER XX]
AND EXTORTS A PROMISE
The heat was awful. At the turn in the staircase Dick faltered and leaned against the wall. His eyes were smarting with the acrid smoke; he could scarcely breathe. Below him the door of the first-floor room to the left was crackling savagely, the flames showing strangely red through the eddying, rolling banks of smoke. Above him the stairs were outlined with tiny tongues of fire or crimson patches of smoldering woodwork, and beyond all was dark, foul with the fumes which had poured up from the floor below. The stairs under his feet grew hot, and the wall against which he leaned a hand was like a pave on which a summer sun has beaten for hours.
His first thought had been to find a fireman and lead him to Taylor’s room, which was on the back of the house, next to that in which the fire was eating rapidly from below. But as yet he had seen no one. From the first floor came dull blows of axes tearing into the timbers and plaster. Should he go down again and summon help? But no, for scarce a dozen steps intervened between him and the door of Taylor’s room. If the ladders were being brought to the window his task would prove simple, and might be finished ere assistance could be found. And even as he hesitated there, striving to protect his aching eyes with one arm, the matter was decided for him. With a sound like that of a mighty wave breaking upon a pebble-strewn beach the fire broke through the door below, crumpling it up like a sheet of metal foil and hurling it upward in a blast of flaring cinders. Great tongues of flame burst forth into the hallway as from the mouth of a giant furnace, and as he looked the stairs behind him caught like tinder, and a breath, scorching, suffocating, rushed up, seeming to take him bodily from his feet and hurl him upon the smoking steps above.
With a gasp, he struggled to his feet and fought blindly up the remaining stairs. His escape by the front of the house was cut off. And then for the first time the possibility of finding Taylor’s door locked from within faced him. If it should be so then his work was all in vain, for he had no hope of being able to force the lock there in that deadening swirl of smoke. From the head of the stairs to the door of the room occupied by Taylor was but a half dozen feet, but Dick, with his sleeve pressed against his mouth and his eyes fast closed, won it only after what seemed ages, though from the moment he had entered the house until his groping fingers closed on the knob but a scant minute had passed. Half sick with the fear that he would find the door fast, he hesitated a second; and then, with a stifled sob, turned the handle.