第41章 CHAPTER XVI--CLEANSING FIRES(3)

Lisa looked shudderingly at the desperate means of salvation so far below, and, turning her face away as much as she could, unclasped her arms despairingly, and Atlantic came swooping down from their shelter, down, down into the counterpane; stunned, stifled, choked by smoke, but uninjured, as Lisa knew by the cheers that greeted his safe descent.

A tongue of fire curled round the corner of the building and ran up to the roof towards another that was licking its way along the top of the window.

'Jump now yourself!' called the policeman, while two more men silently joined the four holding the corners of the quilt. Every eye was fixed on the motionless figure of Marm Lisa, who had drawn her shawl over her head, as if just conscious of nearer heat.

The wind changed, and blew the smoke away from her figure. The men on the roof stopped work, not caring for the moment whether they saved the tenement house or not, since a human life was hanging in the balance. The intoxicated woman threw a beer-bottle into the street, and her son ran up from the crowd and locked her safely in her kitchen at the back of the house.

'Jump this minute, or you're a dead girl!' shouted the officer, hoarse with emotion. 'God A'mighty, she ain't goin' to jump--she's terror-struck! She'll burn right there before our eyes, when we could climb up and drag her down if we had a long enough ladder!'

'They've found another ladder and are tying two together,' somebody said.

'The fire company's comin'! I hear 'em!' cried somebody else.

'They'll be too late,' moaned Rhoda, 'too late! Oh, Mary, make her jump!'

Lisa had felt no fear while she darted through smoke and over charred floors in pursuit of Atlantic--no fear, nothing but joy when she dragged him out from under bench and climbed to the window-sill with him,--but now that he was saved she seemed paralysed. So still she was, she might have been a carven statue save for the fluttering of the garments about her thin childish legs. The distance to the ground looked impassable, and she could not collect her thoughts for the hissing of the flame as it ate up the floor in the room behind her. Horrible as it was, she thought it would be easier to let it steal behind her and wrap her in its burning embrace than to drop from these dizzy heights down through that terrible distance, to hear her own bones snap as she touched the quilt, and to see her own blood staining the ground.

'She'll burn, sure,' said a man. 'Well, she's half-witted--that's one comfort!'

Mary started as if she were stung, and forced her way still nearer to the window; hoping to gain a position where she could be more plainly seen.

Everybody thought something was going to happen. Mary had dozens of friends and more acquaintances in that motley assemblage, and they somehow felt that there were dramatic possibilities in the situation.

Unless she could think of something, Marm Lisa's last chance was gone: that was the sentiment of the crowd, and Mary agreed in it.

Her cape had long since dropped from her shoulders, her hat was trampled under foot, the fair coil of hair had loosened and was falling on her neck, and the steel fillet blazed in the firelight.

She stepped to the quilt and made a despairing movement to attract Lisa's attention.

'Li-sa!' she called, in that sweet, carrying woman's voice that goes so much further than a man's.

The child started, and, pushing back the shawl, looked out from under its cover, her head raised, her eyes brightening.

Mary chanced all on that one electrical moment of recognition, and, with a mien half commanding and half appealing, she stretched out both her arms and called again, while the crowd held its breath: