a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward along
the side of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all his might,
and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to Maurice's room
and save him. He penetrated but a short distance when, blinded and
choking with the smoke, he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry of
despair that roused every man, woman, and child within reach of a human
voice. Out they came from their houses in every quarter of the village.
The shout of Fire! Fire! was the chief aid lent by many of the young and
old. Some caught up pails and buckets: the more thoughtful ones filling
them; the hastier snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearer
the burning building.

Is the sick man moved?

This was the awful question first asked,--for in the little village all
knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house. The
attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had left him,
and gasped out,

"He is there!"

A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed off in
search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there was no
ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man was going
to be swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive. Some
were going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the hope that the young man
might have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caught
in it. The attendant shook his head, and said faintly,

"He cannot move from his bed."

One of the visitors at the village,--a millionaire, it was said,--a
kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones:

"A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!"

The fresh-water fisherman muttered, "I should like to save the man and to
see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan'
dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,--or even chokin' to
death, anyhaow."

The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village,
recent or old, shook his head.

"The stairs have been shored up," he said, "and when the fists that holds
'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go over them
stairs. Hurry along your ladder,--that's your only chance."

All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had
gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off for
the workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get there in