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Rh and somehow forced apart the tightly wedged mass of human beings, though it seemed as if there was not room to move more than your eyelids. Gambi was tottering on the edge of the lowest step, held up by those around him, and I reached him literally walking on the bodies of the others, who snapped and tore at me in passing, so that I thought that I should have to bring him away in pieces. But there is a special Providence for drunkards,—for some of them at least,—and at last I was able to seize him by the collar, and fighting and kicking out right and left, I dragged him to the floor where the air was clearer.

There was little time to spare! The fire was roaring through the doorway, as if up a chimney, driving out men from the rampart we had made, and I could smell the roasting flesh of the brigands on the staircase. Stooping low and treading on I knew not what, I dragged Gambi by his hair through a hole in the wall, and somehow managed to reach the outside of the warehouse, leaving the fire to finish the work of destruction. When my men rejoined me they were so glad to see me safe that they could not do enough for Gambi; and after we had revived and fed him, we found under his rags some beautiful colored enamels, which he had stolen, God knows where! and contrived to hold on