“The wind has shifted,” Florence breathed. “It—it’s going to be hard.”
Lucile did not reply. Her throat was parched. Her face felt as if it were on fire. The heavy coat and hat were insufferable yet she dared not cast them away.
So they struggled on. And their shadow, like all true shadows, followed.
“Look! Oh, look!” cried Florence, reeling in her tracks.
A sudden gust of wind had sent the fire swooping against the side of a magnificent building of concrete and steel. Towering aloft sixteen stories, it covered a full city block.
“It’s going,” cried Lucile as she heard the awful crash of glass and saw flames bursting from the windows as if from the open hearth furnace of a foundry.
It was true. The magnificent mahogany desks from which great, high-salaried executives sent out orders to thousands of weary tailors, made quite as good kindling that night as did some poor widow’s washboard, and they were given quite as much consideration by that bad master, fire.
“Hurry!” Lucile’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “We must get behind it, out of the path of the wind, or we will be burned to a cinder.” Catching the full force of her meaning, Florence seized Lucile’s hand and together they rushed forward.
Burning cinders rained about them, a half-burned board came swooping down to fall in their very path. Twice Lucile stumbled and fell, but each time Florence had her on her feet in an instant.
“Courage! Courage!” she whispered. “Only a few feet more and then the turn.”