ted with much good advice. One little boy in
particular recommended him seriously to go home and ask his mamma to put
him to bed--a remark which was received with great delight by the
bystanders.

But there was not much laughter; for the fire was very terrible, and
there was a report that some of the inmates had not been rescued by the
fire-escape men.

Meanwhile, our fireman with the epaulettes, who was foreman of that
district, went about like a general in action, watching the flames
sternly,--giving a quiet order to one, indicating a point of vantage to
another, giving a helping hand here and there with the hose, answering a
quick question promptly, and doing his utmost to dispose his force in
such a way as to quell the raging fire. All this time he moved about
among smoke and flames and falling materials as if he bore a charmed
life--which, indeed, he did: for, as he afterwards said himself, the
hand of God shielded him, and nothing on earth could kill him till his
work on earth was done; and nothing on earth could save him when his
time to die should come. This sentiment was, partly at least, the
secret of the fireman's cool courage in the midst of danger.

But the enemy was very strong that night, and the brigade could make no
impression whatever on the burning house, the inside of which glowed
like a smelting furnace.

"Try the drawing-room window, Jim, wi' the fire-escape," said our
foreman to one of his men.

He helped Jim to push the huge ladder on wheels to the window mentioned,
and placed it in position. While Jim ran for a nozzle and hose, there
was a great cry from the crowd. A woman had got out on the ledge of an
attic window, and knelt there shrieking and waving her arms, while the
smoke curled round her, and the flames leapt up at her. She was high
above the head of the escape; but there were fly-ladders which could be
raised above that. These were instantly hoisted, and our foreman sprang
up to the rescue.

The danger of the attempt lay in this--that, though the lower and upper
parts of the escape were comparatively free from smoke, the middle was
shrouded with a dense mass, through which now and then a lurid red flame
burst. But our hero thought only of the woman. In a second or two he
had disappeared in the smoke.

Two of the firemen stood below holding a nozzle of the hose and
directing it on a particular spot. They did not dare to move from their
post, but they could see by a gla