This did not admit of an argument.
"Now, aren't you sorry you brought me?" asked the girl.
"Well, no," said her companion. "Hardly—yet. Let's try a little strategy."
In front of them School Street was filled with wild turmoil. Here were hose carts and gray, snaky hose lines stretching along the pavement in weird, curves and spurting tiny streams from imperfect couplings; here were firemen rushing excitedly back and forth, hoarsely calling orders which no one seemed to hear. Along the curb were chemicals, hook and ladders, patrols, all of them now stripped of their apparatus; while at every corner beside a hydrant, each one chugging steadily away like the regular, vibrant pulse from some giant heart, were the fire engines. Out of their funnels poured a steady flare of cinders and smoke; on the pavement beneath them the embers lay crimson; and the scarlet flashes, whenever the fire doors were opened, showed the glowing furnaces within.
Retracing their steps toward Tremont Street, Smith and Helen skirted the Tremont Temple, then east along Bosworth until they came to Province Street. Up this narrow passage, which passes as such only by a courtesy peculiarly Bostonian, they went, finding themselves presently back almost where they had started, but at a point of vantage whence they could see the western face of the fire, which was now beginning to threaten hungrily westward toward the stout old stone walls of the City Hall.
And now the building of the Boston News, although protected by a system of automatic sprinklers, was thoroughly ablaze, as was the Miles Block immediately fronting City Hall Avenue. It was from this last building that the City Hall stood in jeopardy.
In Province Street, protected from the surge of activities beyond, the onlookers could watch most of the fight to save the old building. And a gallant fight it was, for the space between the fire and the coping of the old stone structure's eastern wall was a scant thirty feet. Fortunately, however, the wind was blowing almost directly from the north, and this gave the firemen a chance. From the movements of the department and the snatches of orders which could occasionally be heard, Smith gathered that a similar struggle was going on in at least three directions from the blazing block. To west, to south, and to east the flames were leaning, and the narrow streets made the task of holding them additionally hazardous.
Meanwhile the heat, even in Province Street, had become intense. Together with the other onlookers, Smith and Helen found it necessary to take refuge in the doorways and behind an angle of a building which projected slightly beyond the rest of the row, from which point they looked forth in turn, shading their faces and eyes with their hands. All at once, looking upward, they saw a cloud of smoke suddenly replace the glare directly north. The next moment a dull sound from the Miles Block was heard, and Smith saw its western cornice sway.
"We'd better get out of this, quick," he said. "A wall fell then—the west wall of that building there. That ought to save the City Hall, if they handle it right; but it'll make this alley too hot to hold us. Come on!"
Side by side the two hurried back with the crowd along the narrow way. Their departure was taken none too soon. Behind them they could feel a wave of heat radiated from the ruins of the burning structure; it forced its way even through the little street down which they were retreating, and they could feel the hot blast upon their backs.