the lofty tenement-house which towered above them from the other side of the narrow yard upon which the window looked, was oozing with smoke, but there were no flames visible, and as yet no special manifestations of alarm on the part of its occupants. But in an instant, even while they stood there, arose the sudden and awful cry of “Fire!” and at the same moment they beheld the roof and casements before them, swarm with pallid faces, as men, women and children rushed to the first outlet that offered escape, only to shrink back in renewed terror from the deadly gulf that yawned beneath them.
It was horrible, all the more that the fire seem to be somewhere in the basement story, possibly at the foot of the stairs, for none of the poor shrieking wretches before them seemed to make any effort to escape downwards, but rather surged up towards the top of the building, waving their arms as they fled, and filling the dusk with cries that drowned the sound of the coming engines.
The scene appeared to madden Holt. “My boy! my boy! my boy!” rose from his lips in an agonized shriek; then as Mr. Sylvester gave a sudden start, cried out with indiscribable anguish, “He is there, my boy, my own little chap! A woman in that house has bewitched him, and when he is not with me, he is always at her side. O God, curses on my head forever letting him out of my sight! Do you see him, sir? Look for him, I beseech you; he is lame and small; his head would barely reach to the top of the windowsill.”
“And that was your boy!” cried Mr. Sylvester. And struck by an appeal which in spite of his abhorrence of the man at his side, woke every instinct of fatherhood within him, he searched with his glance the long row of windows before them. But before his eye had travelled halfway across the building, he felt the man at his side quiver with sudden agony, and following the direction of his glance, saw a wan, little countenance looking down upon them from a window almost opposite to where they stood.