a hot stifling smoke, mercifal 
destroyer running before  : and the wordnetfear 
of a gigantic figure began to flicker in from the 
outside, and to come and go upon the wall. 
Alfred did not know what that was, but it gave 
him a vague  : he prayed aloud as men pray 
only for their bodies. (The crowd heard him and 
hushed itself breathless.) 

The smoke penetrated faster, blinding and 
stifling ; the giant wordnetfear came and went. But 
now the greater part of the roof fell in with an 
awful report; the blazing timbers thundered 
down to the basement with endless clatter of 
red-hot tiles ; the wal^ quivered, and the build- 
ing belched skyward a thousand jets of  like a 
bouquet of rockets ; and then a cloud of smoke. 
Alfred gave up all , and prepared to die. 
Crash ! as if discharged from a cannon, came 
burating through the window with the roar of an 
applauding multitude and a mother's unheeded 
scream, a helmeted figure rope in hand, and 
alighted erect and commanding on the floor 
amidst a shower of splinters and tinkling glass. 
" Up men for your lives ! " roared this  wairior, 
clutching them hard, and dragged them both up 
to their feet by one prodigious gesture : all three 
faces came together and shone in the lurid light