"Indeed, Miss Ludolph, from my heart I pity you."
"Can you save me? Oh, do you think you can save me?" she moaned, in an agony of fear.
"Yes, I feel sure I can. At any rate I shall not leave you;" and taking her a little out of the jostling crowd he kneeled and bound up the burned foot with his handkerchief. A little further on they came to a shoe-store with doors open and owners gone. Almost carrying Christine into it, for her other foot was cut and bleeding, he s.n.a.t.c.hed down a pair of boy"s stout gaiters, and wiping with another handkerchief the blood and dust from her tender little feet, he made the handkerchiefs answer for stockings, and drew the shoes on over them.
In the brief moment so occupied, Christine said, with tears in her eyes: "Mr. Fleet, how kind you are! How little I deserve all this!"
He looked up with a happy smile, and she little knew that her few words amply repaid him.
There was a crash in the direction of the fire. With a cry of fear, Christine put out her hands and clung to him.
"Oh, we shall perish! Are you not afraid?"
"I tremble for you, Miss Ludolph."
"Not for yourself?"
"No! why should I? I am safe. Heaven and mother are just beyond this tempest."
"I would give worlds for your belief."
"Come, quick!" cried he, and they joined the fugitives, and for a half-hour pressed forward as fast as was possible through the choked streets, Dennis merely saying an encouraging word now and then. Suddenly she felt herself carried to one side, and falling to the ground with him. In a moment he lifted her up, and she saw with sickening terror an infuriated dray-horse plunging through the crowd, striking down men, women, and children.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, gently, pa.s.sing his arm around her and helping her forward, that they might not lose a single step.
"Awful! Awful!" she said, in a low, shuddering tone.
The dreadful scenes and the danger were beginning to overpower her.
A little further on they reached an avenue to the northwest through which Dennis hoped to escape. But they could make but little headway through the dense ma.s.ses of drays, carriages, and human beings, and at last everything came to a deadlock. Their only hope was to stand in their place till the living ma.s.s moved on again.
Strange, grotesque, and sad beyond measure were the scenes by which they were surrounded. By the side of the aristocratic Christine, now Baroness Ludolph, stood a stout Irishwoman, hugging a grunting, squealing pig to her breast. A little in advance a hook-nosed spinster carried in a cage a hook nosed parrot that kept discordantly crying, "Polly want a cracker." At Dennis"s left a delicate lady of the highest social standing clasped to her bare bosom a babe that slept as peacefully as in the luxurious nursery at home. At her side was a little girl carrying as tenderly a large wax doll. A diamond necklace sparkled like a circlet of fire around the lady"s neck. Her husband had gone to the south side, and she had had but time to s.n.a.t.c.h this and her children. A crowd of obscene and profane rowdies stood just behind them, and with brutal jest and coa.r.s.e laughter they pa.s.sed around a whiskey-bottle. One of these roughs caught a glimpse of the diamond necklace, and was putting forth his blackened hand to grasp it, when Dennis pointed the captured pistol at him and said, "This is law now!"
The fellow slunk back.
Just before them was a dray with a corpse half covered with a blanket.
The family sat around crying and wringing their hands, and the driver stood in his seat, cursing and gesticulating for those in advance to move on. Some moments pa.s.sed, but there was no progress. Dennis became very anxious, for the fire was rapidly approaching, and the sparks were falling like hail. Every few moments some woman"s dress was ablaze, or some one was struck by the flying brands, and shrieks for help were heard on every side. Christine, being clad in woollen, escaped this peril in part. She stood at Dennis"s side trembling like a leaf, with her hands over her face to shut out the terrible sights.
At last the driver, fearing for his life, jumped off his dray and left all to their fate. But a figure took his place that thrilled Dennis"s heart with horror.
There on the high seat stood Susie Winthrop--rather Mrs. Leonard. The light of insanity glowed in her eyes; her long hair swept away to the north, and turning toward the fiery tempest she bent forward as if looking for some one. But after a moment she sadly shook her head, as if she had sought in vain. Suddenly she reached out her white arms toward the fire, and sang, clear and sweet above the horrid din:
"O burning flakes of fiery snow, Bury me too, bury me deep; My lover sleeps thy banks below; Fall on me, that I may sleep!"
At this moment a blazing brand fell upon the horses" heads; they startled forward, and the crazed lady fell over on the corpse below.
The animals being thoroughly terrified turned sharp around on the sidewalk, and tore their way right toward the fire, trampling down those in their track, and so vanished with their strangely a.s.sorted load.
Dennis, fearing to stay any longer where he was, determined to follow in their wake and find a street leading to the north less choked, even though it might be nearer the fire, and so with his trembling companion he pressed forward again.
Two blocks below he found one comparatively clear, but in terrible proximity to the conflagration. Indeed, the houses were burning on each side, but the street seemed clear of flame. He thought that by swiftly running they could get through. But Christine"s strength was fast failing her, and just as they reached the middle of the block a tall brick building fell across the street before them! Thus their only path of escape was blocked by a blazing ma.s.s of ruins that it would have been death to cross.
They seemed hemmed in on every side, and Dennis groaned in agony.
Christine looked for a moment at the impa.s.sable fiery barrier, then at Dennis, in whose face and manner she read unutterable sympathy for herself, and the truth flashed upon her.
With a piercing shriek she fainted dead away in his arms.
CHAPTER XLIV
ON THE BEACH
In the situation of supreme peril described in the last chapter, Dennis stood a second helpless and hopeless. Christine rested a heavy burden in his arms, happily unconscious. Breathing an agonized prayer to heaven, he looked around for any possibility of escape. Just then an express-wagon was driven furiously toward them, its driver seeking his way out by the same path that Dennis had chosen. As he reached them the man saw the hopeless obstruction, and wheeled his horses. As he did so, quick as thought, Dennis threw Christine into the bottom of the wagon, and, clinging to it, climbed into it himself. He turned her face downward from the fire, and, covering his own, he crouched beside her, trusting all now to G.o.d.
The driver urged his horses toward the lake, believing that his only chance. They tore away through the blazing streets. The poor man was soon swept from his seat and perished, but his horses rushed madly on till they plunged into the lake.
At the sound of water Dennis lifted his head and gave a cry of joy.
It seemed that the hand of G.o.d had s.n.a.t.c.hed them from death. Gently he lifted Christine out upon the sands and commenced bathing her face from the water that broke in spray at his feet. She soon revived and looked around. In a voice full of awe and wonder she whispered, "Ah!
there is another world and another life, after all."
"Indeed there is, Miss Ludolph," said Dennis, supporting her on his arm and bending over her, "but, thanks to a merciful Providence, you are still in this one."
"How is it?" she said, with a bewildered air. "I do not understand.
The last I remember, we were surrounded by fire, you were despairing, and it seemed that I died."
"You fainted, Miss Ludolph. But G.o.d as by a miracle brought us out of the furnace, and for the present we are safe." After she had sufficiently rallied from her excessive exhaustion and terror, he told her how they escaped.
"I see no G.o.d in it all," she said; "only a most fortunate opportunity, of which you, with great nerve and presence of mind, availed yourself.
To you alone, again and again this dreadful night, I owe my life."
"G.o.d uses us as His instruments to do His will. The light will come to you by and by, and you will learn a better wisdom."
"In this awful conflagration the light has come. On every side I see as in letters of fire, "There is no G.o.d." If it were otherwise these scenes would be impossible. And any being permitting or causing the evils and crimes this dreadful night has witnessed, I shall fear and hate beyond the power of language to express."
She uttered these words sitting on the sands with mult.i.tudes of others, her face (from which Dennis had washed the dust and smoke) looking in the glare so wan and white that he feared, with a sickening dread, that through exposure, terror, or some of the many dangers by which they were surrounded, she might pa.s.s into the future world with all her unbelief and spiritual darkness. He yearned over her with a solicitude and pity that he could not express. She seemed so near--indeed he could feel her form tremble, as she kneeled beside her, and supported her by his arm--and yet, in view of her faithless state, how widely were they separated! Should any one of the many perils about them quench the little candle of her life, which even now flickered faintly, where in the wide universe could he hope to meet her again? G.o.d can no doubt console His children and make up to them every loss, but the pa.s.sionate heart, with its intense human love, clings to its idol none the less. Dennis saw that the fire would probably hem them in on the beach for the remainder of the night and the following day. He determined therefore in every way possible to beguile the weary, perilous hours, and, if she would permit it, to lead her thoughts heavenward. Hence arose from time to time conversations, to which, with joy, he found Christine no longer averse.
Indeed, she often introduced them.
Chafing her hands, he said in accents of the deepest sympathy, "How I pity you, Miss Ludolph! It must indeed be terrible to possess your thoughtful mind, to realize these scenes so keenly, and yet have no faith in a Divine Friend. I cannot explain to you the mystery of evil--why it came, or why it exists. Who can? I am but one of G.o.d"s little children, and only know with certainty that my Heavenly Father loves and will take care of me."
"How do you know it?" she asked, eagerly.
"In several ways. Mainly because I feel it."
"It all seems so vague and unreal," she sighed, dreamily. "There is nothing certain, a.s.sured. There is no test by which I can at once know the truth."
"That does not prevent the truth from existing. That some are blind is no proof that color does not exist."