he boy's first cry. The others followed.

The south wing was not visible from the front. Its third story was in
flames, and the back and sides of the ground-floor had caught, but at a
second-story window (which she had opened) they all saw a face--that of
Margaret Harold; the glare of the main building showed her features
perfectly. They could not have heard her, even if she had been able to
call to them, the roar of the fire was now so loud.

"She cannot throw herself out, it's too high; and we have no blanket.
There's a door below, isn't there? And stairs?" It was Mr. Moore's voice
that asked.

"Yes, passon, yes. But it's all _a-bu'nin_'!"

Mr. Moore clasped his hands and bowed his head, it did not take longer
than a breath. Then he started towards the wing.

"Oh, passon, yer dassent!"

"Oh, passon, yer can't help her now, de sweet lady, it's too late. Pray
for her _yere_, passon; she'll go right straight up, she's wunner der
Lawd's _own_ chillun, de dove!"

"Oh, passon! de Lawd ain't willin' fer _two_ ter die."

The negro women clung about him, but he shook them off; going hastily
forward, he broke in the door and disappeared. His moment's prayer had
been for his wife, in the case--which he knew was probable--that he
should not come from that door alive.

The gap he had made revealed the red fire within; behind the stairs the
back of the wing was a glowing furnace.

The negroes now all knelt down, they had no hope; they began to sing
their funeral hymn.

The fire had reached the second story; Margaret's face had disappeared.

A bravery which does not reason will sometimes conquer in the teeth of
reason. One chance existed, it was one amid a dozen probabilities of a
horrible death; it lay in swiftness, and in the courage to walk, without
heeding burned feet, directly across floors already in a glow.

Middleton Moore crossed such floors; he went unshrinkingly up the
scorching stairs. He found Margaret by sense of touch in the
smoke-filled room above, and tearing off his coat, he lifted her as she
lay unconscious, wrapped her head and shoulders in it, and bore her
swiftly down the burning steps, and through the fiery hall, and so out
to the open air. His eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair were singed, his face
was blistered; brands and sparks had fallen like hail upon his shoulders
and arms, and scorched through to the skin; his boots were burned off,
the curled leather was dropping from his burned feet; his b