CHAPTER VIII.
I had known the terror that seizes upon the heart at the sudden alarm of devastating fires before. I had been awakened by such alarms from a peaceful sleep at midnight. I had felt rather than heard the dull vibration of heavy axes beating in barred doors to break an entrance into buildings where fierce fires were raging. Through the rents made by frenzied blows, I had caught intermittent gleams of licking tongues of fire curling upward with devouring eagerness. I had heard the blood-curdling cries of the watchmen. I had witnessed the mad galloping of the engines. I had seen the dismay of the terrified occupants of burning buildings suddenly shaken from sound slumber, and rushing almost naked into the streets. None of these things were strange to me, and still I trust I may never know again the sickening, contagious terror I felt when I reached the street and knew that the fire was located in the buildings which the women had chosen for their retreat.
No one told me this. I instinctively felt it the moment I joined the throng of hatless, coatless, pale-faced men who were hurrying with frantic, but speechless haste toward the bridge which led to the women’s home. All the treasures of the earth were but as dust compared with those that were in jeopardy on that hill-side.
A groan of relief escaped the lips of those about me as we drew near the noble group of buildings, which the women had chosen for their home, and saw that the one that was on fire stood at such a distance from the others that it did not greatly endanger them. The building which was on fire was in fact built for a hospital, and was, therefore, purposely kept aloof from the rest. But though the anxiety lest there should be a general conflagration among the women’s quarters was assuaged, the progress of the flames in the burning building was sufficiently terrifying. Flames had begun to dart intermittently from an upper window, and a huge column of black smoke was heavily drifting into the starlit sky.
It is true that women, as a rule, are not cool and clear-headed in the presence of the peril of sudden fire, though it is also true that many men are not more so. This fact it appeared had been clearly recognized by the women, and only the trained women nurses, who were employed in the hospital,--those noiseless, efficient, self-possessed, self-denying creatures, who pass their gentle lives in the dim twilight of sick-rooms,--had been allowed by the women to remain near the building after the fire had been discovered. With quiet celerity these trained nurses had got the greater part of the patients safely out of the building before a man arrived. All was calmness, action, and self-restraining nerve. It was only when in response to the dire summons of the alarm bell, the impetuous wave of men surged up the hill and around the building, that there was anything like mad disorder, and fruitless panic. Not a man stopped for a instant after reaching the burning building, but plunged madly into its interior. The halls became choked with them, they stumbled over each other on the staircases, with demoniac strength they forced all opposing doors from their hinges, wildly groping through the blinding smoke after any woman that might possibly have been left. Every instant brought fresh panting relays of men, who disappeared into the building as swiftly as those who had gone before them. Suddenly, in the midst of the dire and increasing confusion, a tall and slender woman emerged from the smoke at the broad entrance. Great masses of chestnut hair were held back from her pure, impassioned face by some chance fastening caught up at the moment. There was a lofty seriousness and a noble self-possession in her stately bearing that made the desperate men who were pressing toward the entrance pause and draw back as if suddenly confronted by an angelic apparition. She had raised her hands to press them against the breasts of the men who were tumultuously advancing, but there was no need. A sudden hush and calm had fallen on them all at sight of her. But the words that she spoke sounded as strangely as the words of an incongruous dream.
“Where are the engines?” she said quietly.
Where indeed? Up to this time there had been a constant arrival of men who were more like madmen than anything else, but there had not appeared the slightest sign of any appliances, either for putting out the fire or for rescuing those in peril. The strong panting men whom this beautiful young woman addressed in such quiet but earnest tones, hung their heads upon their breasts speechless and abashed. The truth was apparent. At the first sound of the alarm of fire in the woman’s quarters every man in the town, filled with a sickening fear, and torn with a mad anxiety lest woman should really be lost forever past all recovery, had rushed headlong to the spot, leaving prudence, caution and forethought utterly behind him. The one mad idea which controlled them all was to rush into the flames and tear their beloved away from them with their own powerful hands. They had left the means of staying the fire behind them. The woman saw it all in an instant, and in a voice which was both quiet and imperious, she said:
“Go back at once and get the engines, and be quick.”
The men did not need a second word. Seizing horses which were at hand they disappeared across the bridge in sufficient numbers to bring all the appliances for rescue and for putting out fire that were in the town.
But in the meantime the flames had not stayed. They had broken out in a lower storey, and all the men who had reached the top storey in their frantic search for any woman who might be there, were imprisoned by the fire which enveloped the staircases. To add to the terror of the situation, it was discovered that a lame girl who had been a patient in the ward on the top floor of the building, had not been seen and could not be found. She must be in the building. This discovery was a signal for a fresh rush of heroic, reckless men into the flames in search for her at any peril. But the same magnificent woman who had sent for the engines stopped them with a command that they could not disobey.
“You will only throw your lives away,” she said; “the men who are already in the building will take care of the lame girl if it is possible to save either.”
As she said this a great sympathetic cry arose from the crowd who were gazing anxiously up at the burning building.
The men who were imprisoned by the fire, about twenty in number, had gained the roof and were triumphantly holding up in their strong arms the lame girl. The flames had driven them to one end of the building and appeared to be surrounding them, leaving only one corner unexposed.
Merciful Heavens, would the engines and scaling ladders never arrive!
Steadily the flames advanced, but fortunately the night was perfectly still, so that their progress was slow. The men on the roof, falling back foot by foot, had at last placed the lame girl at the least exposed spot and formed a hollow square around her presenting only their own dauntless breasts to the destroyer that threatened her.
“Call to them,” said the woman who had directed the men, “tell them to have courage, courage!” The strong man to whom she spoke essayed to do as she told him. He hoarsely cried out, but his voice weakened and broke into weeping. He was completely unnerved.
At this terrible moment there came a noise like rolling thunder on the bridge, and in another instant all the appliances for quenching fire and for rescue were in the eager hands of a hundred feverish workers. Deluging streams of water poured on to the flames which surrounded the band on the roof. Ladders were quickly hoisted, and borne in strong arms, arms to whom woman was precious as never before, the lame girl, without the smell of fire upon her garments, was gently placed upon the ground beside the woman. As they embraced each other I heard the lame girl call her “Allegra.” The men who had been her companions, and who had been tenderly assisted to the ground, eyed them at a little distance with haggard, pathetic interest.
It was three o’clock in the morning when Mr. Lister and I, in company with a host of wan and forlorn-looking men, re-crossed the bridge and betook ourselves toward our homes. With faces blackened by smoke, their clothing torn and burnt, their beards singed, and without coats, hats or shoes, they looked like the stern and ravaged remnant of some historic Old Guard returning from a desperate assault. Jaded as I was, I remember that the thought of burning Moscow and the desperate, heroic retreat of Marshall Ney and his valiant rear guard, passed vaguely through my mind. But at the homes toward which these men were turning, there were no women to meet them with tears of love and pity, and to bind up their wounds with tender hands! They sternly entered their empty homes in silence. But so utterly exhausted was I with the excitement of the night, that this strange, pathetic spectacle did not greatly move me. Mr. Lister and I, without exchanging a word, staggered up the steps of his house like drunken men.
But though I was nearly worn out with fatigue, the thought of going to my room and of being alone with my thoughts was utterly intolerable. I knew that I could not sleep. The excitement of the struggle with fire in which we had just been engaged the anticipation of the curious parade which I was to witness on the morrow, to say nothing of the strange revelations which had crowded upon me in the past two days, made sleep a sheer impossibility. And yet it seemed to me that I must have some diversion or I should go mad. What to do I knew not.
As I could think of no other diversion, I determined, as a last resort, to go to my room and spend the night in reading. To do so I had to go by Mr. Lister’s room, the door of which, for the first time when I had passed it, stood wide open. As I chanced to raise my eyes to the wall opposite the door, I stopped in sudden awe, as if confronted by the shrine of a Madonna. An exquisite oil portrait of a woman hung there, and I saw at a glance that it was the beautiful, imperious creature who had such a magic influence in controlling the men at the fire.
There were the same large eyes looking upward from under a drift of gold-flecked chestnut hair. Her expression was that of eager, almost prophetic anticipation. A ravishing smile of hope and confidence was on her slightly parted lips, and the velvet curve of a resolute but womanly chin showed deep courage and devotion. This, then, was undoubtedly Mr. Lister’s prospective bride. If I could but hear the love story of this man and woman what a diversion it would be!
I determined to fearlessly ask Mr. Lister to tell me his love story that night.
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