“Good! Get down as quickly as you can, and send up more help.”
“Ye devil! Do ye think to sneak past me?” cried Braunt, seizing Scimmins, who had at last fought his way through.
“Don’t waste time with that man, Braunt. My God, don’t you see the flames! The roof will be in on us in a minute! Fling him down here!”
“He stays behind me till the last soul’s out,” snarled Braunt, between his teeth.
Sartwell said no more. It was no time to argue or expostulate, and Braunt, although pinning Scimmins to the wall behind him, continued to extricate the women as fast as the manager could pass them along. The knot was continually forming at the door, and was as continually unloosed by the stalwart, indefatigable arms of Braunt.
“You are smothering me,” whined Scimmins.
“I hope so,” said Braunt.
The situation was now hardly to be borne. The smoke ascending the stairway met the smoke pouring through the door, yet, in spite of the smoke, the room was bright, for a steady column of flame roared up through the shaft, making it like a blast-furnace.
“Are they all out?” gasped Sartwell, coughing, for the smoke was choking him.
“Ah think so, sir; but Ah’ll have a look. Some maybe on the floor,”—and Braunt, as he spoke, hurled Scimmins into the room ahead of him, pushing the door shut, so that Sartwell would not hear the man if he cried out. The manager, strangling in the smoke, appeared to have forgotten that Scimmins was there.