Forest City was on fire. The wind was directly behind the blaze. Before it, beckoning it on, were tons of confetti, board walks, dry as tinder, and flimsy structures of stucco and lath. Nothing could save this play place of the frightened thousands.
Realizing this, and fearing death from the blaze, the throngs that but a moment before were screaming with merriment now raced screaming and shouting with fear toward the back of the park where there were no exits, but where flimsy board fences would offer little resistance to their mad onrush.
To add to the terror of the moment, the powerhouse was at once attacked by the unhindered blaze. The cables were burned. Every chain, every cable, every wheel of the place suddenly stopped. The moving platform which bore the gondolas of the City of Venice majestically on their way, came to a sudden halt. The men, women and children who crowded the gondolas were obliged to leap into the water and to battle their way as best they could through the maze of plaster-of-paris castles, humble homes and shops toward the faint spot of light which marked the exit. This spot of light was but the glare of the fire, for all lights had burned out with the cable.
Only the glare of burning buildings lighted the awe inspiring scene that followed. The roller coaster, pausing with a sudden jerk in its mad rush, left some merrymakers stranded on light trestles, and others so tilted on a down glide that they were standing more on their heads than their feet.
There came the screams of women who had lost their way in some strange place of entertainment and mirth. In this throng were women in thin ball-room costumes; boys and girls with roller skates clanking on their feet; performers from the outdoor stage, dressed in little more than tinsel and tights, and all pushing and shoving, screaming and praying that they might reach the far end and break away into wider spaces beyond before the fire was upon them.
And the fire. Having started in the offices, it has leaped joyfully on to the power-house and thence to the Palace of Fools. The faces on the statue of two fools are seized with a sudden pallor. They become yellow and jaundiced, then turn suddenly black. Then of a sudden they assume a very ruddy hue. As quickly after that they crumble to nothing and fall, a mass of dust. Johnny and Mazie will not meet Pant and little Tillie McFadden beneath the statue of two fools to-night. No, nor on any other night.
And what had happened to Pant and Tillie McFadden? Up to the last few terrible moments they had been having the time of their young lives. Up and down, under and over, they had rushed through space on the roller coaster. With all the solemn majesty of a trip to Europe they had ridden through the City of Venice. For a time they had wandered upon the board-walk. It was during this walk that Pant had caught sight of a familiar figure, a slim girl with a red rose pinned on her breast. He had watched her for but a moment when he was made sure by her skipping step, which was more a dance than a walk, that she was the dancing girl who had saved his life that night in the den of the underworld. Just as he had been about to put his hand on her shoulder, a screeching mob of revelers had come swooping down upon her and, as a torrent of water bears away a leaf, had carried her away.
“Ah well,” he had sighed, “I will come upon her again.” At that he had turned to Tillie McFadden, who was standing staring at the Ferris wheel with the fascination of a child.
“Want to go on there?”
She nodded.