ring round the corner as I turned to rush up the stairs, which were
already filled with smoke.

I dashed in the first door I came to. A lady, partially clothed, stood
there pale as death, and motionless.

"Quick, madam! descend! the house is on fire!" I gasped in sharp
sentences as I seized her. "Where is your--your (she looked young)
_sister_?" I cried, as she resisted my efforts to lead her out.

"I've no sister!" she shrieked.

"Your daughter, then! Quick, direct me!"

"Oh! my darling!" she cried, wringing her hands.

"Where?" I shouted in desperation, for the smoke was thickening.

"Up-stairs," she screamed, and rushed out, intending evidently to go up.

I caught her round the waist and forced her down the stairs, thrust her
into the arms of an ascending fireman, and then ran up again, taking
three steps at a time. The cry of a child attracted me. I made for a
door opposite, and burst it open. The scene that presented itself was
striking. Out of four cribs and a cradle arose five cones of
bed-clothes, with a pretty little curly head surmounting each cone, and
ten eyes blazing with amazement. A tall nurse stood erect in the middle
of the floor with outstretched arms, glaring.

Instantly I grasped a cone in each arm and bore it from the room.
Blinded with smoke, I ran like a thunderbolt into the arms of a gigantic
fireman.

"Take it easy, sir. You'll do far more work if you keep cool. Straight
on to front room! Fire-escape's there by this time."

I understood, and darted into a front room, through the window of which
the head of the fire-escape entered at the same moment, sending glass in
splinters all over us. It was immediately drawn back a little, enabling
me to throw up the window-sash and thrust the two children into the arms
of another fireman, whose head suddenly emerged from the smoke that rose
from the windows below. I could see that the fire was roaring out into
the street, and lighting up hundreds of faces below, while the steady
clank of engines told that the brigade was busily at work fighting the
flames. But I had no time to look or think. Indeed, I felt as if I had
no power of volition properly my own, but that I acted under the strong
impulse of another spirit within me.

Darting back towards the nursery I met the first fireman dragging with
his right hand the tall nurse, who seemed unreasonably to struggle
against him, while in his left arm he carried two of the children