Her first thought was of the boy who had saved her. But when she looked up at the window from which she had come she could see nothing, for the flames had burst out from beneath it, cutting off every hope of escape.
“Has he come down? Is he safe?” she asked. But there was no reply, for those that stood about her looked at one another with expressive glances and shook their heads, and then turned their eyes toward the awful flames which were sweeping with resistless force up the side of the building.
Laura closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands, and just then a mighty shout rent the air. The boy had appeared at another window—he had made his line fast to the sill and thrown the loose end down into the street! And now he was climbing out of the window, and a great silence fell upon the crowd as, with one look at what lay before him, he deftly twisted the frail rope about his belt-hook, and, with a firm grasp on the line below, plunged into the whirlwind of flame and smoke beneath him.
“The boy’s all right, miss; he’s just come down from another window. He’s standing there on the pavement,” were the words that fell upon the young girl’s ear. She heard them, but made no response—her overtaxed strength had given way.
And now it became apparent to others beside Captain Murphy’s engineer that the great hotel was doomed. The chief of the department, who had been a silent and apparently unmoved spectator of all that has just been described, realized it, too, and uttered the simple command: “Back out!” The order was given none too soon, and as the long lines of hose were withdrawn, the firemen broke them up into convenient lengths and attached them to the four-inch stand-pipe on the deck of the water-tower, while others made preparations to take positions on the adjacent buildings, in order to operate the siamese streams. Then the men swarmed up and through the houses nearby bearing hose-hoists and roof-ropes, and in a few minutes they were hauling long lines of pipe up over the eaves of the houses, and fastening them securely, by means of the roof-ropes, to chimney and scuttle. Two, three, and four way siamese connections were quickly placed in position, and connected with the huge brass stand-pipe with incredible rapidity, and from these great volumes of water were poured against and into the doomed building and upon the roofs of the houses next to it.