“I don’t know anything about that,” interrupted the policeman, pushing back the crowd to right and left. “You can’t go in there again, and that’s all there is about it.”
A determined look came into ’Lijah’s dark face. He stopped shaking and watched his chance. It came soon, and with a movement wonderfully quick for such an old man, he darted through the line and toward the burning building.
“Stop him! Stop the nigger!” shouted half a dozen voices. “He’s crazy!”
Two or three firemen sprang forward, but it was too late. An involuntary and audible shudder went through the crowd as he plunged into the black stairway, stooping to avoid the flames which curled around the posts above his head.
In another minute some one cried out, “Look, look! there he is, way up in the third story!”
How he had made his way through that terrible barrier, no one ever knew. There he was, gesticulating wildly at the window, shouting to the firemen, and presently holding up what appeared to be a small box. With a warning cry to those below, he dropped it, watched it as it fell and was borne safely out of danger by a uniformed officer,—and sank back upon the window sill. Those in the opposite building afterward said they could see then that he was terribly burned, but seemed in all his pain to be laughing to himself. They thought, as did the crowd below, that he was insane.
All this time the firemen were attacking the fire upon every side, but with no visible effect. The varnish and oils stored by the furniture dealers in various portions of their establishment made rallying points for the flames, which almost at the very outset had found their way through the central staircase, and so up and out of the roof. Every front window in the two lower stories poured forth its volume of fire and smoke, so that no ladders could be successfully planted. Nor could entrance be effected through the skylight, the enemy having, as I have described, taken possession of that important point. Meanwhile old ’Lijah seemed quite content to sit just inside his window and wait for what was coming fast. His grizzled head drooped gradually, and those nearest could see his lips moving. If they had been very near indeed, they would have heard him talking and singing to himself:
“‘Swing low, sweet chari-o-t,
Comin’ fer to carry me home!’