“This way!” cried Van Nesten, taking the burglar’s hand again. They ran through tangled aisles of machinery, tables, and benches, the thick smoke all about them. Then Van Nesten reached a window and he and the burglar seized it together and threw it up. Shouts and the sounds of confusion in the street came up to them now, and in the distance clanged the gong of an approaching fire-engine. But there was no time to lose.
“Go ahead!” said Van Nesten. “It’s one at a time now.”
Then the burglar, with his head and shoulders through the window, drew back, white and shaking.
“My God!” he exclaimed, “have we got to jump across there?”
It was a perfectly easy leap of five feet to the roof of the next building, with a twenty-four inch drop to make it certain. “I can’t do it!” the burglar groaned.
Van Nesten stared at him, appalled at his sudden fright. “You’re crazy!” he cried. “It’s perfectly easy. Go on, man! Be quick!”
The burglar clutched the window-sill, looking out with wild eyes.
“I can’t!” he muttered despairingly. “I was always this way. I can’t do it!”
“You’ve got to!” said Van Nesten. “By God! I’ll throw you over!”
But the burglar shrank away. His nerve was utterly gone.