"Doesn't it make you shudder?"
"Certainly, my dear. That is the very deliciousness of it"
"But the danger!"
"Ah, you know I'm a perfect Bluebeard in the taste for horrors. I really envy Parrhasius his enjoyment in flaying the old slave—or did he flog him? But it's of no consequence which. He tortured him somehow, you remember, and chained him to a stake in his studio, so that he might paint Prometheus' writhings to the life."
But just here something happened which cut short his tirade of irony.
It was on the Broad street side of the Harmon building (such the great six-story structure was called), just where the Marches' coachman had halted their span, that the most pitiful incident of this memorable fire took place. By 4 o'clock everybody conceded that the Harmon building was lost. Occupied principally by dry-goods firms, whose light wares, spread over the counters, were like so much hay to the flames, it needed scarcely more than the touch of a match to convert it into smoke. At the sound of the second explosion hundreds of salesgirls and male employes had rushed to the exits, barely outstripping the fire. It was supposed that all had been warned and escaped, and only a signal shriek from the top story in the rear notified the beholders that human lives were in peril. Looking up, they saw at the windows a dozen girls and half as many youths huddling together with the blanched faces of deadly fear. Thick smoke was already curling up and enveloping them and reflections of the flames, like an aurora rising in the north, were visible behind. The cries they made could not be understood, but their gestures were dumbly eloquent.
"Jump!" came the cry from a hundred throats below. A teamster pulled the rubber covers off the Protective company's wagon. Firemen and policemen improvised nets of canvas, which they tore from the awnings near by and spread under the shrinking group. Two or three of the girls, who leaped for a telegraph pole on the outer edge of the sidewalk, almost miraculously succeeded in scrambling down. Others climbed out on the ledge and made as if to jump, but drew back from the awful plunge. The fire was upon them now, and one could weep to see the men, brave fellows, coaxing their timid companions to take the leap. One woman of coarser build ran along the dizzy ledge, which scarcely yielded footing for a sparrow, and sprang into the branches of a tree on the corner, her dress saving her at the cost of fearful laceration. Then a form came crashing down into the outspread nets, another and another, without pause, without certainty of aim. Two struck the sidewalk and were carried off shapeless and silent. One young girl's fall was broken by a policeman's brawny arms—no other than Patrolman Chandler. She picked herself up laughing, only to faint away, while her rescuer was borne off groaning. It was all over soon—a tragedy of five minutes—but those who witnessed it felt as if their hearts had been standing still for a century.
"Let us drive away," said Rosalie, a sickness seizing her.
"Yes," answered Tristram; "the people are beginning to stare at you." His sensitive lips were pale and he shut his eyes lest their film of pity should be seen. It was true, some of the bystanders had pointed out his companion to one another as Rosalie March. The face of this beautiful girl had become familiar since Manager Mapletree the season before had persuaded her to come out from the privacy of her home and assume two or three roles in his revival of Shakespeare's comedies. Perhaps they wondered who the gentleman beside her might be. Brother and sister bore each other little specific resemblance.
"What's that carriage halting here for? Do you think this is a procession? Pass on!" cried Federhen to the coachman, who whipped up his horses in a hurry. The police had not yet got around to this side of the block, but the fire chief seemed at all times to be where the crisis was. At a word from him ambulances arose from the very ground and the dead and injured were carried off to the hospital. His straggly gray beard confronted the fire-fighters everywhere, goading on the laggards, cheering the valiant. Indomitable, tireless, he sent them again and again at the ruined shell, drowning the neighboring dwelling-houses meanwhile in a flood of water. The calm air favored him. People said "him," for somehow the forces of salvation seemed to be embodied and centralized in one implacable form. But the wind created by the fire was carrying sparks and brands to a distance of half a mile. The awed spectators winced and scattered at these hot showers. It was still a speculation where the holocaust would end.