第134章 "Right Onward"(4)

"Haloo! A fire engine!" he exclaimed.

Erica hastily joined him; a crowd was gathering beneath the window, shouting, waving, gesticulating.

"Why, they are pointing up here!" cried Erica."The fire must be here!"She rushed across the room and opened the door; the whole place was in an uproar, people rushing to and fro, cries of "FEUER! FEUER!"a waiter with scared face hurrying from room to room with the announcement in broken English, "The hotel is on fire!" or, sometimes in his haste and confusion, "The fire is on hotel!" For a moment Erica's heart stood still; the very vagueness of the terror, the uncertainty as to the extent of the danger or the possibility of escape, was paralyzing.Then with the natural instinct of a book lover she hastily picked up two or three volumes from the table and begged her father to come.He made her put on her hat and cloak, and shouldering her portmanteau, led the way through the corridors and down the staircase, steadily forcing a passage through the confused and terrified people, and never pausing for an instant, not even asking the whereabouts of the fire, till he had got Erica safely out into the little platz and had set down her portmanteau under one of the trees.

They looked up then and saw that the whole of the roof and the attics of the hotel were blazing.Raeburn's room was immediately below and was in great danger.A sudden thought seemed to occur to him, a look of dismay crossed his face, he felt hurriedly in his pocket.

"Where did I change my coat, Erica?" he asked.

"You went up to your room to change it just before the drive," she replied.

"Then, by all that's unlucky, I've left in it those papers for Hasenbalg! Wait here; I'll be back in a minute."He hurried off, looking more anxious than Erica had ever seen him look before.The papers which he had been asked to deliver to Herr Hasenbalg in no way concerned him, but they had been intrusted to his care and were, therefore, of course more to be considered than the most valuable private property.Much hindered by the crowd and by the fire engine itself which had been moved into the entrance hall, he at length succeeded in fighting his way past an unceasing procession of furniture which was being rescued from the flames, and pushing his way up the stairs, had almost gained his room when a pitiful cry reached his ears.It was impossible to a man of Raeburn's nature not to turn aside; the political dispatches might be very important, but a deserted child in a burning house outweighed all other considerations.He threw open the door of the room whence the cry had come; the scaffolding outside had caught fire, and the flames were darting in at the window.Sitting up in a little wooden cot was a child of two or three years old, his baby face wild with fright.

"Poor bairn!" exclaimed Raeburn, taking him in his strong arms.

"Have they forgotten you?"

The child was German and did not understand a word, but it knew in a moment that this man, so like a fairy-tale giant, was a rescuer.

"Guter Riese!" it sobbed, appealingly.

The "good giant" snatched a blanket from the cot, rolled it round the shivering little bit of humanity, and carried him down into the platz.

"Keep this bairnie till his belongings claim him," he said, putting his charge into Erica's arms.And then he hurried back again, once more ran the gantlet of the descending wardrobes and bedsteads, and at last reached his room.It was bare of all furniture; the lighter things his coat among them had been thrown out of the window, the more solid things had been carried down stairs.He stood there baffled and for once in his life bewildered.

Half-choked with the smoke, he crossed the room and looked out of the window, the hot breath of the flames from the scaffolding scorching his face.But looking through that frame of fire, he saw that a cordon had been drawn round the indiscriminate piles of rescued property, that the military had been called out, and that the most perfect order prevailed.There was still a chance that he might recover the lost papers! Then, as there was no knowing that the roof would not fall in and crush him, he made the best of his way down again among the still flowing stream of furniture.

An immense crowd had gathered in the square outside; the awe-struck murmurs and exclamations sounded like the roar of distant thunder, and the shouts of "WASSER! WASSER!" alternated with the winding of bugles as the soldiers moved now in one direction, now in another, their bright uniforms and the shining helmets of the fire brigade men flashing hither and thither among the dark mass of spectators.

Overhead the flames raged while the wind blew down bits of burning tinder upon the crowd.Erica, wedged in among the friendly Tyrolese people, watched anxiously for her father, not quite able to believe his assurance that there was no danger.When at length she saw the tall commanding figure emerge from the burning hotel, the white head towering over the crowd, her heart gave a great bound of relief.But she saw in a moment that he had been unsuccessful.

"It must have been thrown out of the window," he said, elbowing his way up to her."The room was quite bare, carpet and all gone, nothing to be found but these valuables," and with a smile, he held up the last number of the "Idol-Breaker," and a tooth brush.