"We want room to do this work in," he cried in a loud voice, and the bluecoats began vigorously routing the onlookers back until the fire was to them like something seen through an inverted opera glass, and the sagging ropes nearly broke under the black weight of humanity which they fended off.
Federhen's practiced eye saw the doom of the dwelling-house. So he called off his engines and threw up ladders against the great mercantile buildings to leeward and in the rear. It was from one of these, presumably the fireworks-room of Schnitzler Bros., that the second explosion, scattered and prolonged like an enfilading volley of musketry, had come, and already a thatch of flame had run around under the projecting roof of the structure. Against this the fire tower was slowly brought into position and sloped over, its tip just topping the eaves, but the axes of the squad sent up failed to make any impression on the solid sheathing of the roof. When the tower ladder itself began to take fire, and a stream had to be played on it constantly, the order was given, none too early, "Come down!" and the firemen's first ambition, to get above the enemy, had to be abandoned for less efficacious measures. Fountain jets, rising from the street, and level streams from the roofs of the dwelling-houses opposite, did their ineffectual best to quench the red thirst of the triumphing element.
"This is glorious!"
"Tristram!"
The girl pulled a dolman over her shoulders, fear simulating cold, before the savage dance of the flames. Their carriage had passed through Broad street, in the rear of Cazenove, a few minutes before, and when the alarm sounded Tristram had ordered the coachman to turn and drive them back.
"Glorious, Rosalie!" he repeated, looking up at the red streamers and the swirling smoke.
"It was just here we met your friend, Harry Arnold," murmured Rosalie. "Did you notice he had only one glove on?"
"Glorious!" echoed her enraptured brother, as a section of the wall fell in, disclosing an oven view like the interior of a Bessemer blast furnace.
"See the horses pawing. The sparks will fall on them. Let us drive away."
"My palette!" was Tristram's answer. "Brush! Easel! Canvas! Oh, the lost chance of a lifetime!"