As soon as he was safely landed, the men at the rope braced themselves for a pull, and with a "Yo, heave, ho!" the whole side of the building was torn off and came over into the street with a deafening crash, while a vast fountain of fire arose from its ruins, and the crowd swayed back as the heat struck upon their faces.
By this time the engines had got into position, stretched their hose, and were playing away vigorously. The foremen were sometimes bawling through their trumpets, and sometimes battering them to pieces in excitement. The men that held the nozzles and directed the streams were gradually working their way nearer and nearer to the buildings, as the water deadened portions of the fire and diminished the heat. And, through all the din and uproar, we could hear the steady, alternating thud of the brakes as they struck the engine-boxes on either side. Occasionally this motion on some particular engine would be quickened for a few minutes, just after a vigorous oration by the foreman; but it generally settled back into the regular pace.
And now a crack appeared in the front wall of one of the tall brick buildings, near the corner, running all the way from ground to roof. A suppressed shout from the crowd signified that all had noticed it, and served as a warning to the hose-men to look out for themselves.
The crack grew wider at the top. The immense side wall began to totter, then hung poised for a few breathless seconds, and at last broke from the rest of the building and rushed down to ruin.
It fell upon the burning wreck of the wooden structure, and sent sparks and fire-brands flying for scores of yards in every direction.
The hose-men crept up once more under the now dangerous front wall, and sent their streams in at the windows, where a mass of living flame seemed to drink up the water as fast as it could be delivered, and only to increase thereby.
It might have been ten minutes, or it might have been an hour, after the falling of the side wall,—time passes so strangely during excitement,—when another great murmur from the crowd announced the trembling of the front wall. The hose-men were obliged to drop the nozzles and run for their lives.
After the preliminary tremor which always occurs, either in reality or in the spectator's imagination, the front wall doubled itself down by a diagonal fold, breaking off on a line running from the top of the side wall still standing to the bottom of the one that had fallen, and piling itself in a crumbled mass, out of which rose a great cloud of dust from broken plaster.
The two other brick buildings, notwithstanding thousands of gallons of water were thrown into them, burned on fiercely till they burned themselves out. But no more walls fell, and, for weeks afterward, the four stories of empty and blackened ruin towered in a continual menace above their surroundings.
The old shanty which Monkey Roe had hoped would burn, had been saved by the unwearied exertions of the firemen, who from the moment the engines were in action had kept it continually wet.