"Jump this minute, or you’re a dead girl!" shouted the officer, hoarse with emotion. "God A’mighty, she ain’t goin’ to jump—she’s terror-struck! She’ll burn right there before our eyes, when we could climb up and drag her down if we had a long enough ladder!"
"They’ve found another ladder and are tying two together," somebody said.
"The fire company’s comin’! I hear ’em!" cried somebody else.
"They’ll be too late," moaned Rhoda, "too late! Oh, Mary, make her jump!"
Lisa had felt no fear while she darted through smoke and over charred floors in pursuit of Atlantic—no fear, nothing but joy when she dragged him out from under bench and climbed to the window-sill with him,—but now that he was saved she seemed paralyzed. So still she was, she might have been a carven statue save for the fluttering of the garments about her thin childish legs. The distance to the ground looked impassable, and she could not collect her thoughts for the hissing of the flame as it ate up the floor in the room behind her. Horrible as it was, she thought it would be easier to let it steal behind her and wrap her in its burn-
