Dense smoke fills the hallway. The crackling of flames makes mad music, and when this is supplemented by the shrieks of terrified women, shouts of firemen, the throbbing of engines, and a dull roar from the dense crowd that collected like magic under such circumstances, the result is a combination that once heard can never be forgotten.
Wycherley looks down the stairway and immediately draws back again. Even his remarkable nerve is shaken by the sight. Besides, he hears cries near by that tell him he is not the only one imprisoned in the upper story of this old tenement, now in flames—cries that can only come from a terrified woman.
“Think, old boy, and if ever you cudgeled your brains, do so now. It’s useless trying to get out below—rather too warm for comfort. How about the other way?”
The flames are roaring up the stairway, and whatever is done must be done quickly, or else it will be too late. He remembers some sort of ladder leading to a trap in the roof. It offers a chance. Whether the situation will be improved or not, who can say?
Groping his way through the terrible smoke, he lays hold on the ladder. Just then from a room near by comes the wail:
“Oh, God! help me, save me, and I will undo the past. I swear it. Help! help!”
Wycherley recognizes a woman’s voice. He is not a hero, lays no claim to be such, but if death is the inevitable consequence he cannot try to save himself and desert a fellow creature. Down goes his carpet bag, and in five seconds he is at the door of the other room in the upper story of the burning tenement.
“Who’s here?” he shouts.
A figure at the small window, almost in the act of casting herself out, turns to him.
“Oh, save me, sir! It is too horrible! I am not fit to die. Save me!” she pleads wildly.