Jeffreys had nothing to apprehend as he rushed down the passage. He had neither watch, chain, nor money, nor good coat. His footsteps echoing noisily in the midnight silence brought a few heads to their windows, and almost before he stood in the court there was the cry of “Fire!”
Terrible anywhere, such a cry in a court like Driver’s was terrible indeed. In a moment the narrow pavement swarmed with people, shouting, cursing, and screaming. Although even yet the flames scarcely appeared from below, a panic set in which it was hopeless either to remove or control. Chairs, tables, mattresses were flung, it seemed at random, from the windows. Mothers, not venturing out on the stairs, cried down to those below to catch their children. Drunken men, suddenly roused, reeled fighting and blaspheming into the court. Thieves plied their trade even on their panic-stricken neighbours, and fell to blows over the plunder. Still more terrible was the cry to others who remained within.
Children, huddled into corners, heard that cry, and it glued them where they stood. The sick and the crippled heard it, and made one last effort to rise and escape. Even the aged and bedridden, deserted by all, when they heard it, lay shouting for some one to help.
The flames, pent-up at first and reddening the sky sullenly through the smoke, suddenly freed themselves and shot up in a wild sheet above the court. The crowd below answered the outburst with a hideous chorus of shrieks and yells, and surged madly towards the doomed house.
There was no gleam of pity or devotion in those lurid, upturned faces. To many of them it was a show, a spectacle; to others a terrible nightmare, to others a cruel freak of Providence, calling forth curses.
The flames, spreading downwards, had already reached the second floor, when a window suddenly opened; and a woman with wild dishevelled hair, put out her head and screamed wildly.
The crowd caught sight of her, and answered with something like a jeer.
“It’s Black Sal,” some one shouted; “she’s kotched it at last.”
“Why don’t you jump?” shouted another.
“Booh?” shouted a third. “Who skinned the cripple?”