The Secret Mark Part 24

"Come on," she said, seizing Florence by the arm; "the fire's down toward Tyler street. I think we ought to try to get to the cottage if we can.

What could that child and the old Frenchman do if the fire reached their cottage? He'd burn rather than leave his books and the child wouldn't leave him; besides there are the books that belong to other people and that I'm partly responsible for. C'm'on."

For fifteen minutes they struggled down a street that was thronged with excited people.

"One wouldn't believe that there could be such a crowd on the streets at this hour of the night," panted Florence, as she elbowed her way forward.

"Lucile, you hang to my waist. We must not be separated."

They came to a dead stop at last. At the end of the river bridge a rope had been thrown across the street. At paces of ten feet this rope was guarded by policemen. None could pa.s.s save the firemen.

The fire was across the river but sent forth a red glare that was startling. By dint of ten minutes of crawling Florence succeeded in securing for them a position against the rope.

A large fire in a city at night is a grand and terrible spectacle. This fire was no exception. Indeed, it was destined to become the worst fire the city had experienced in more than forty years.

Starting in some low, ancient structures that lay along the river, it soon climbed to a series of brick buildings occupied by garment makers.

The flames, like red dragons' tongues, darted in and out of windows. With a great burst they leaped through a tar-covered roof to mount hundreds of feet in air. Burning fragments, all ablaze, leaped to soar away in the hot currents of air.

The firemen, all but powerless, fought bravely. Here a fire tower reared itself to dizzy heights in air. Here and there fire hose, like a thousand entwined serpents, writhed and twisted. Here a whole battery of fire engines smoked and there two powerful gasoline driven engines kept up a constant heavy throbbing. Roofs and walls crumbled, water tanks tottered and fell, steel pillars writhed and twisted in the intense heat, chimneys came cras.h.i.+ng in heaps.

The fire had all but consumed the row of four-story buildings. Then with a fresh dash of air from the lake it burst forth in earnest, a real and terrible conflagration.

Lucile, as she stood there watching it, felt a thousand hitherto unexperienced emotions sweep over her. But at last she came to rest with one terrible fact bearing down upon her very soul. Tyler street was just beyond this conflagration. Who could tell when the fire would reach the mysterious tumble-down cottage with its aged occupant? She thought of something else, of the books she might long since have returned to their rightful owners and had not.

"Now they will burn and I will never be able to explain," she told herself. "Somehow I must get through!"

In her excitement she lifted the rope and started forward. A heavy hand was instantly laid on her shoulders.

"Y' can't go over there."

"I must."

"Y' can't."

The policeman thrust her gently back behind the rope and drew it down before her.

"I must go," she told herself. "Oh, I must! I must!"

CHAPTER XXIII INSIDE THE LINES

"Come on," Lucile said, pulling at Florence's arm. "We've got to get there. It must be done. For everything that must be done there is always a way."

They crowded their way back through the throng which was hourly growing denser. It was distressing to catch the fragments of conversation that came to them as they fought their way back. Tens of thousands of people were being robbed of their means of making a living. Each fresh blaze took the bread from the mouths of hundreds of children.

"T'wasn't much of a job I had," muttered an Irish mother with a shawl over her head, "but it was bread! Bread!" "Every paper, every record of my business for the past ten years, was in my files and the office is doomed," roared a red-faced business man. "It's doomed! And they won't let me through."

"There's not one of them all that needs to get through more badly than I," said Lucile, with a lump in her throat. "Surely there must be a way."

Working their way back, the two girls hurried four blocks along Wells street, which ran parallel to the river, then turned on Madison to fight their way toward a second bridge.

"Perhaps it is open," Lucile told Florence.

Her hopes were short-lived. Again they faced a rope and a line of determined-faced policemen.

"It just must be done!" said Lucile, setting her teeth hard as they again backed away.

An alley offered freer pa.s.sage than the street. They had pa.s.sed down this but a short way when they came upon a ladder truck which had been backed in as a reserve. On it hung the long rubber coats and heavy black hats of the firemen.

Instinctively Lucile's hand went out for a coat. She glanced to right and left. She saw no one. The next instant she had donned that coat and was drawing a hat down solidly over her hair.

"I know it's an awful thing to do," she whispered, "but I am doing it for them, not for myself. You may come or stay. It's really my battle. I've got to see it through to the end. You always advised against going further but I ventured. Now it's do or die."

Florence's answer was to put out a hand and to grasp a fireman's coat.

The next moment, in this new disguise, they were away.

Had the girls happened to look back just before leaving the alley they might have surprised a stoop-shouldered, studious-looking man in the act of doing exactly as they had done, robing himself in fireman's garb.

Dressed as they now were, they found the pa.s.sing of the line a simple matter. Scores of fire companies and hundreds of firemen from all parts of the city had been called upon in this extreme emergency. There was much confusion. That two firemen should be pa.s.sing forward to join their companies did not seem unusual. The coats and hats formed a complete disguise.

The crossing of the bridge was accomplished on the run. They reached the other side in the nick of time, for just as they leaped upon the approach the great cantilevers began to rise. A huge freighter which had been disgorging its cargo into one of the bas.e.m.e.nts that line the river had been endangered by the fire. Puffing and snarling, adding its bit of smoke to the dense, lampblack cloud which hung over the city, a tug was working the freighter to a place of safety.

"We'll have to stay inside, now we're here," panted Lucile. "There's a line formed along the other approach. Here's a stair leading down to the railway tracks. We can follow the tracks for a block, then turn west again. There'll be no line there; it's too close to the fire."

"Might be dangerous," Florence hung back.

"Can't help it. It's our chance." Lucile was halfway down the stair.

Florence followed and the next moment they were racing along a wall beside the railway track.

A switch engine racing down the track with a line of box cars, one ablaze, forced them to flatten themselves against the wall. There was someone following them, the studious boy in a fireman's uniform. He barely escaped being run down by the engine, but when it had pa.s.sed and they resumed their course, he followed them. Darting from niche to niche, from shadow to shadow, he kept some distance behind them.

"Up here," panted Lucile, racing upstairs.

The heat was increasing. The climbing of those stairs seemed to double its intensity. Cinders were falling all about them.

"The wind has s.h.i.+fted," Florence breathed. "It--it's going to be hard."

Lucile did not reply. Her throat was parched. Her face felt as if it were on fire. The heavy coat and hat were insufferable yet she dared not cast them away.

So they struggled on. And their shadow, like all true shadows, followed.

"Look! Oh, look!" cried Florence, reeling in her tracks.

A sudden gust of wind had sent the fire swooping against the side of a magnificent building of concrete and steel. Towering aloft sixteen stories, it covered a full city block.

"It's going," cried Lucile as she heard the awful crash of gla.s.s and saw flames bursting from the windows as if from the open hearth furnace of a foundry.