Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/283

Rh bending beneath the flames, which flashed out from the room and almost licked her head. The crowd uttered a cry of horror. The firemen, who had been stopped on the second floor by mistake by the terrified lodgers, had already broken through a wall and into a room, when a hundred shouts gave them warning:—

“‘On the third floor! On the third floor!’

“They flew to the third floor. There they found an infernal uproar,—beams from the roof crashing in, corridors filled with a suffocating smoke. In order to reach the rooms where the lodgers were imprisoned, there was no other way left but to pass over the roof. They instantly sprang upon it, and a moment later something which resembled a black phantom appeared on the tiles, in the midst of the smoke. It was the corporal of the firemen, who had been the first to arrive. But in order to get from the roof to the small set of rooms cut off by the fire, he was forced to pass over an extremely narrow space between a dormer window and the eaves-trough. All the rest was in flames, and that tiny space was covered with snow and ice, and there was no place to hold on.

“‘It is impossible for him to pass!’ shouted the crowd below.

“The corporal advanced along the edge of the roof. All shuddered, and began to observe him with bated breath. He passed. A tremendous hurrah rose towards heaven. The corporal resumed his way, and on arriving at the point which was threatened, he began to break away, with furious blows of his axe, beams, tiles, and rafters, in order to open a hole through which to descend into the house.