Men had already unhitched the plunging horses and tied them to a tree.
But it was soon evident that the engine must lie where it was for the present.
"Can"t do nawthin" with her," decided the foreman and Ed Blossom, after a necessarily hurried examination, "but say," continued the foreman, enthusiastically, as if the breakage of the engine was only a secondary consideration, "that rescue of the little gal was as plucky a thing as I ever seen."
And there was no one in that crowd who did not agree with him. But there was no time to linger by the engine. The thing to be done was to push on to the fire. The crowd rushed along and the foreman stopped to say to Rob aside:--
"You boys must help us keep the crowd back while we form a bucket line; it"s our only chance to save the place now--and a mighty slim one," he added, as again a red tongue of flame slashed the dark firmament like a scarlet scimitar.
"There goes the last of the old "cademy!" cried a man as he saw. "In an hour"s time there won"t be a stick of it left."
Without the engine to pump a stream through the pipes, the hose cart was useless and was abandoned where it rested. Under the foreman"s directions the Boy Scouts invaded houses and borrowed and commandeered every bucket, pail or can they could find. Everything that would hold water was rushed to the scene.
There was a creek opposite the blazing Academy, and while the Boy Scouts held back the crowd the firemen formed a double line and pa.s.sed the filled utensils rapidly from hand to hand. As fast as they were emptied they came back again to be refilled by those at the creek end of the line. With improvised staves, cut and broken from shrubs, the boys held the crowd back. The method was this: each lad held the ends of two staves, the other ends of which were grasped by his comrades on either side of him. This formed a sort of fence and to the credit of the Hampton citizens be it said they had too much respect for the good work of the Boy Scouts to try and press forward unduly.
The Boy Scouts were on duty now. Alert, watchful, aching to be taking part in the active scene before them, they schooled themselves into doing their best in the--by comparison--hum-drum task a.s.signed to them.
The Academy, an aged brick building, was wreathed in flames. From the cupola on top, from which had sounded for so many years the morning summons to study, was spouting vivid fire. They could see Dr. Ezekiel Jones, the head of the school, and some of the other instructors running about in the brilliantly lighted grounds and saving armfuls of books and papers. The fire appeared to be on the middle floors. At any rate up to this time it had been possible for the men bent on saving what they could to dart in at the big front doors, reappearing with what they had been able to salvage from the flames.
With the pitifully inadequate means at their command, the firemen could do little more than work like fiends at pa.s.sing buckets. It was necessary to be doing something, but even the stoutest hearted and most hopeful of the onlookers knew that the case was hopeless.
Suddenly there appeared, from no one knew exactly where, a little pale-faced man with sandy whiskers. He wore overalls and was hatless. A woman, a white-faced woman, clung to his arm desperately.
"No, Eben," she kept screaming, "not you, too! Not you, too!"
"Let me go, Jane!" the pallid little man kept shouting in reply. "It"s our baby, we"ve got to get him out!"
He made a struggle toward the blazing building, but the woman clung to him frenziedly. Now a fireman rushed at him and added his strength to the woman"s.
"Great Scotland," gasped Merritt, who stood next to Rob, "it"s old Duffy, the janitor, and his wife!"
"What is it?" cried Rob, without replying, as a fireman hastened past him. "What"s the matter?"
"Her baby. She"s left it in the "cademy," came the choking answer. The man, whose face was white with helpless horror, hurried on to obey some order, while a shudder of sympathy and fear ran through the crowd. Now came more details as men hastened back and forth. The woman, thinking that her husband had the baby, had rushed from the house at the first alarm. For his part, old Duffy, the janitor, never dreaming that the fire would gain such rapid headway, had tried to fight it alone, thinking all the time that his wife had the infant. The true situation had just been discovered and the man was frantic to get back into the place although he was a semi-invalid, known to suffer with heart disease.
The flames were leaping up more savagely every minute. For all the effect that the feeble dribble supplied by the bucket brigade had, they might as well have given up their efforts.
Rob felt his heart give a bound as he watched the janitor and his wife kindly, but firmly, forced back.
His pulses throbbed wildly. He gave one look at the red inferno before him. Then,--
"Here, spread your arms and take my place in line," he snapped out suddenly to Merritt.
The next instant his lithe young figure darted across the flame-lit open s.p.a.ce in front of the school. He knew the interior of the old building like a book, and that would aid him in the task he had steeled himself to perform. He rushed up to the group about the shrieking woman.
"What room is your child in?" he cried, his heart seeming to rise in his throat and choke back the words.
"That one on the south corner," cried the woman mechanically, staring at him with frightened eyes. "See, the flames are getting nearer to it! Oh, my baby! My baby!"
She gave a terrible scream and sank back. Had they not caught her she would have fallen. When she opened her eyes again there was a roar all about her that was not the roar of the flames.
It was the tremendous, awe-stricken turmoil of the crowd. They had seen a boyish figure dart from the fainting woman"s side, shake off a dozen detaining hands, and then, wrapping his coat about his head, dash by a back entrance into the burning building.
As he flung open the door and vanished, a great puff of smoke rolled out.
The cry of awed admiration for such bravery changed to a groan of despair,--the terrible voice of ma.s.sed human beings seeing a lad go to his death. For, as the flames crackled upward more relentlessly than before, it did not seem within the bounds of possibility that anyone could enter the place and emerge alive.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRE TEST.
Touched with reckless bravery, foolhardiness in fact, as Rob"s act had appeared to be, yet he had not acted without taking due thought. As always in emergencies, his mind worked with great swiftness. He had no sooner made up his mind that it was his duty, cost what it might, to save that innocent little one"s life, than he had hit upon a plan.
If the child was lodged in the center of the building, he knew full well that long before its life must have been yielded up to the fire demon.
But if the quarters of the janitor were, as he believed, in the south corner of the school, then there was still a chance. The mother"s words had put him out of all doubt on this score and Rob instantly determined to face the most daring act of his life.
The rooms at the south side of the building had been used by the Academy boys as a gymnasium before their present quarters were built, so that Rob was thoroughly familiar with the stairways leading to them. So far as he could see it would be possible, by using a side door, to dodge the flames shooting up the center of the building. There was a winding stairway that existed on this side of the structure quite independent of the main flight which, by this time, must have fallen in.
With Rob, to arrive at a decision was to act upon it. As we have seen, he had lost no time in making for the doorway. He had, in fact, a double reason for his haste. For one thing, every second would count, and, for another, he realized that to many in the crowd his act would appear to border on madness, and that an attempt might be made to hold him back.
"The boy"s a fool!" yelled someone in the crowd behind Merritt.
Quick as a flash Rob"s chum faced around, indignation shining in his eyes, which had, a second before, been dimmed with tears.
"No, sir; however Rob makes out, he"s a hero," he shot back, while a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd.
"Keep your places, boys," he ordered the next instant, for the Scouts, half wild with anxiety and excitement, were beginning to waver and allow the crowd to surge forward. Merritt"s words stiffened them. In a moment they were recalled to a sense of that duty of which they had just witnessed such a conspicuous example.
The instant Rob crossed the threshold of that door he found himself surrounded by smoke. But he bent low, and throwing his coat more closely above his head, he crouched on all fours so as to get below the level of the acrid fumes that made his eyes smart cruelly. Suddenly he stumbled over something, and as he saw in the dim light what it was he gave a glad gasp. It was a bucket of water, left on the stairway after the regular Sat.u.r.day scrubbing.
Rob was a Scout who knew, from careful study of his Manual, just what to do in emergencies. He recalled now that in case of being compelled to enter a smoky, blazing building, it was recommended to bind a wet cloth over mouth and nostrils in such a way as to act as a respirator.
Instantly he saturated his handkerchief in the water and bound it on his face in the manner advocated.
Then he began what was to prove a terrible climb. The school was three stories in height, the lower two floors containing study rooms and offices and the top floor lumber rooms and the apartments occupied temporarily by the janitor.
Breathing with more ease now that he had bound up his face, Rob fought his way upward. It was as murky as a pit, and it seemed that the stairs were interminable. Suddenly he stumbled and fell headlong. He had gained the first landing. Through a door opening upon it jets of flame, like serpents" tongues, were beginning to shoot. Rob staggered toward the door and slammed it to. He knew that this was absolutely necessary, for in the case of the staircase being in flames when it came time for him to retrace his steps his retreat would be cut off.
But that was a thought he did not dare to dwell upon. Steeling himself anew he pushed stubbornly on to the next flight.
"It"s lucky I know this place as well as I do," he thought, as he gamely kept up the fight against what appeared almost overwhelming odds.
As he climbed higher it grew hotter. The place was like the interior of a volcano. Beyond the wall of the stairway Rob could hear the flames roaring like the beat of the surf on a rocky coast. It almost seemed as if the fire demon possessed an articulate voice and was howling his rage and defiance at the boy who had dared to face his terrors. But, hot as it was growing, Rob yet found some small grain of comfort in the fact that the smoke was not so thick.
He breathed more freely even if his throat was becoming dry as dust and whistled in an odd way as he climbed higher. At last he reached the summit of the second flight.
He paused irresolutely on the landing. Several doors opened off it. Now that he was actually there, Rob was confused for an instant. He was not quite so sure of his bearings as he had thought he would be. But the roar of the flames below and about him warned him to lose not a second of precious time in procrastination.