The heat was awful. At the turn in the staircase Dick faltered and leaned against the wall. His eyes were smarting with the acrid smoke; he could scarcely breathe. Below him the door of the first-floor room to the left was crackling savagely, the flames showing strangely red through the eddying, rolling banks of smoke. Above him the stairs were outlined with tiny tongues of fire or crimson patches of smoldering woodwork, and beyond all was dark, foul with the fumes which had poured up from the floor below. The stairs under his feet grew hot, and the wall against which he leaned a hand was like a pave on which a summer sun has beaten for hours.
His first thought had been to find a fireman and lead him to Taylor’s room, which was on the back of the house, next to that in which the fire was eating rapidly from below. But as yet he had seen no one. From the first floor came dull blows of axes tearing into the timbers and plaster. Should he go down again and summon help? But no, for scarce a dozen steps intervened between him and the[205] door of Taylor’s room. If the ladders were being brought to the window his task would prove simple, and might be finished ere assistance could be found. And even as he hesitated there, striving to protect his aching eyes with one arm, the matter was decided for him. With a sound like that of a mighty wave breaking upon a pebble-strewn beach the fire broke through the door below, crumpling it up like a sheet of metal foil and hurling it upward in a blast of flaring cinders. Great tongues of flame burst forth into the hallway as from the mouth of a giant furnace, and as he looked the stairs behind him caught like tinder, and a breath, scorching, suffocating, rushed up, seeming to take him bodily from his feet and hurl him upon the smoking steps above.
With a gasp, he struggled to his feet and fought blindly up the remaining stairs. His escape by the front of the house was cut off. And then for the first time the possibility of finding Taylor’s door locked from within faced him. If it should be so then his work was all in vain, for he had no hope of being able to force the lock there in that deadening swirl of smoke. From the head of the stairs to the door of the room occupied by Taylor was but a half dozen feet, but Dick, with his sleeve pressed against his mouth and his eyes fast closed, won it only after what seemed ages, though from the moment he had entered the house until his groping fingers closed on the knob but a scant minute had passed. Half sick with the fear that he[206] would find the door fast, he hesitated a second; and then, with a stifled sob, turned the handle.
The door opened, a flood of cooler air met him, and in a moment he had staggered inside and had closed the door again. At first he could see nothing, for the room was in darkness save for the little light that found its way through the window on the side of the house, and his streaming eyes hurt him terribly. He took a dozen deep inhalations of the air, which, while heavy with the fumes from the adjoining room, was pure indeed compared with that scorching, smarting breath without. Then he raised his voice.
“Taylor!” he called, and then louder, “Taylor! Taylor!”
There was no sound save the roar of the fire, the subdued noise of the shouting crowd in the street, and now and then the crash of a falling timber. He peered rapidly about him, striving in the strange ruddy half-light that rose and fell over the room to descry the object of his search. There was the bed and here, nearer at hand, the square table; beyond that was the armchair. Perhaps—— He crossed the room quickly toward it, stumbled over some obstruction, and fell to his knees on the carpet. With a leaping heart he turned. There was a crash of falling woodwork outside, and for an instant the room was bright with the light of the flames. And in that instant he saw that he was bending over the outstretched body of Roy Taylor, lying face down by the table, one arm curved under[207] the head, the other stretched forth with fingers that clutched blindly in the darkness.
“Taylor!” Dick stooped and raised the apparently lifeless body into a sitting posture. “Taylor!” he cried again, a dreadful fear clutching at his heart. To his joy the form stirred and a groan reached his ears.
“Taylor! Brace up! You’re all right; do you hear me?”
A muttered word, low, indistinguishable, answered his appeal. He looked toward the half-opened window. Surely the ladders would be there in a moment! The smoke poured through under the door and wherever there was a crevice, and momentarily increased in volume. Dick’s eyes and lungs again gave the alarm. He shook Taylor with a sudden impulse of terror.
“Wake up, you fool!” he cried. “Get on your feet, or I’ll leave you here! Do you hear? I’ll leave you alone if you don’t wake up!”
Suddenly an arm clutched itself about his shoulders and he knew that Taylor heard him. Then, “Save me!” cried a voice weak and hoarse from terror. “Get me out, oh, get me out! Don’t leave me!”
“Well, keep awake, do you hear? Can you walk?” There was no answer, but Dick could feel the other’s body shaking with sobs. “Cut that out!” he said savagely. “Brace up, man. Try to crawl to the window. I’ll help you. Let go my arm, hang you! Let go, do you hear?”[208] With strong fingers he broke the detaining clutch and half lifted the other to his feet. “Come on; get to the window; they’re bringing ladders!” But Taylor, weakened by his long period in bed, unmanned by his awful experience alone and well-nigh helpless in the burning house, was incapable of standing. With a rush of pity, Dick let him slide toward the floor, until by stooping and moving backward he could pull him by the shoulders across the room. There was no time to consider the injured knee. The room was filled with smoke; the heat was becoming intolerable; in the hall just outside the door the flames were crackling noisily, and to the left the plaster was breaking and falling under the heat of the fire in the adjoining apartment. At the window Dick propped Taylor against the wall and threw up the sash. Outside all was light as day toward the front of the house. He could see figures moving to and fro, could hear the cries of the fire-fighters, but no ladders were in sight. Below the lawn was some twenty feet distant. He could drop if he had to with some hope of escaping anything worse than a bad jar. But Taylor?
Suddenly, as he leaned there with the cool night air driving by him, he asked himself why he should have risked his life for Roy Taylor. Why continue to risk it? Of all fellows in the school Taylor was the last to deserve consideration, much less sacrifice, from him. He would wait as long as he could without endangering his life, he told himself, and then he’d drop from the window. And Taylor?[209] Taylor was............