y one sprang to the window.

"Silence!" cried the young Consul, while every one paused and looked at
him. The little man was standing as erect as an arrow, his eyes calm and
clear, and his lower jaw projecting as usual; and as if conscious that
he was the chief of the house, he said, "A fire has broken out in the
building-yard. You, Morten, go and get the two engines from the
warehouse. The keys are hanging in the men's bedroom. Take the
fire-buckets with you."

Morten dashed off.

"Dick, you must go up to the second floor in the same building. There's
a large sail there; put it in the sea, and stretch it over the roof of
the storehouse. You understand? The storehouse must be saved, or else--"

Uncle Richard was already out of the door with Anders Begmand.

"Gabriel! you run up to the farm! Gabriel!" cried the Consul. But there
was no Gabriel to be seen; he had already vanished through another door.

"Oh! what a wretched boy it is!" said the young Consul, in spite of
himself.

There was something uncanny about the black smoke, and the dark red
flame, which seemed every moment to get a surer foothold, and to gather
strength without a soul to oppose them. Gabriel noticed nothing: he saw
only the red glare on the ship, which loomed against the dark grey sky,
and off he ran like a madman over the field above the house. When he saw
the ship was in danger, Tom Robson was his first and only thought, and
he went straight into the house where he was so well known.

"Mr. Robson! Tom! Tom!" he shouted into the dark room, which smelt like
an old rum-cask. "She's on fire, Tom! The ship's on fire!"

He groped his way to the bed, and gave Mr. Robson a good shaking. The
landlady, a slatternly sailor's wife, now entered with a light. Only a
few minutes before, she had managed to get Tom undressed, somehow or
another.

"Oh no! can that be Mr. Gabriel?" said she, drawing her night-dress
closer to her. "Is it a fire? Mr. Robson!" she cried, and helped Gabriel
to shake him.

"What's the matter?" muttered he in English, turning round his face, all
bruised and bloody as he was.

"Oh no, no!" whined the woman, "how beastly drunk he is! Isn't it a
shame for such a fine fellow to make himself just like a pig? Tom! Tom!
Oh dear me, how tipsy he is!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Gabriel dashed the contents of the basin
in his face. Mr. Robson sputtered and blew, and raising himself on his
left arm, swung the right feebly over hi