ater from the nozzles of a score of hose lines, with the flames driven
back from it by the sustained heroisms of a hundred men--and then the
spectacle of that building leaping suddenly into light in not one but a
dozen places--this is a thing no man can endure, if many times
repeated, and this is what these men had been enduring for ten hours.
They had done all that men could do--more than men could do--and it was
not enough. At that moment all they wanted in the world was the
privilege of lying down, never to rise.

Long hours before, shortly after midnight, when it had become certain
that help would be needed, the wires had carried to the nearby cities
Boston's appeal for aid. As far as Portland and Worcester and
Providence the call had then gone forth; and later on the urgent word
had been flashed to Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, and
New York. The New England cities had loyally responded; their engines
and their men were even now scattered along the battle line and doing
brave service. But these weary men by the South Station had not seen
them; they found it almost impossible to believe that they were not
alone and without aid in this titanic but hopeless task. Help might
have come, their aching brains reflected--but not to them. For them
there had been no help in sea or sky. Gathered together in the yards
below the station, they silently watched it burn.

Of a sudden there came a lurch, a swift sagging of the arch supports at
the western face of the arches; the roof quivered a little, then was
still. It could now, from the open end, be seen that the supports in
several places were wrenched loose from the wall; the steel spans hung
free in air, while white smoke lifted unceasingly toward the summit of
the vast shed. On the tracks the cars were burning briskly. Presently
it could also be seen that the south end of the roof was bending of its
own weight. It bent first just a little--then more. Then for a long
moment it hung motionless, or with but the faintest quiver of
vibration. Then, out of the sightless cavern came the screeching sound
of metal scraping upon metal--a wild sound, like the torture of some
inarticulate thing; a dull, grinding noise followed, and at last, out
of the steaming furnace which the lower part of the train shed was now
become, came the dull roar of some great weight falling.

With a crack like that of a gigantic express rifle the western end of
the great roof ar