Under the hole in the ceiling he dashed a table, then on this he flung a chair. The roof of the room was low and he was a tall man, so that by standing on the chair he could reach the ceiling.
Then he seized the insensible form of the girl and mounted on the table, and from that to the chair. He was almost choked with smoke, and for a moment he felt as though he was about to faint. His shoulders were on a level with the ceiling.
Making a supreme effort, he pushed his burden upward through the opening and rested it on the joists above. Then he drew himself up until his feet came through, and he crouched in the cockloft.
It did not take him a moment to get from the cockloft to the roof. But how was he to get back. He had never thought of getting back until now. He looked down at the insensible girl. He had just been in time. He saw a flutter at her throat. The air had already begun to revive her.
Now the people below saw him, and shouted with relief and joy.
How was he to get back? It was utterly impossible for him to go as he had come. Awhile he rested on the edge of the hole. The smoke was increasing every moment. He looked in the face of the girl he loved more than all the world besides, he looked at the burning house, he looked down at the opposite side of the street, and then he turned his eyes straight in front of him and saw the white level light of dawn broadening in the east.
She was reviving, but for what fate? What a horrible thing to think of! What a maddening thing to fancy of even for a minute!
At that moment the people below shouted:
"The rope! the rope!"
He looked along the roof and saw the rope. It was now secured at the back of the next house, and held by one of the firemen in front. This man drew the rope as much as he dared in the direction of the burning house; but, owing to the flames issuing from the windows, he could not bring it across the house, hence it was twenty feet off from Cheyne. Those twenty feet made all the difference in the world. The whole distance to the point from which he had set out was not more than thirty feet. It would have been as difficult for him to have got ten as thirty feet.