Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/332

 bodies flung pieces of splintered lumber at the oozing mass; then a particular somebody struck a match. That somebody was Adolph Salzberg.

For a moment the crowd had been still, as sensing that something pregnant and sensational was afoot.

The match flickered, the tar caught, smoked, smoldered and flared up. A cheer rose from the crowd. The blaze shot up at the corner of the warehouse like a swift-climbing vine of fire, like a spurt of flame, mounting to the eaves. The cheers grew wilder. The ivy of fire crept both ways along the eaves, its branches like elfin sprites of flickering yellow that balanced dancingly on the gutters and then of a sudden became huge birds with mighty sun-like wings that flapped every way at once. There was a smoke, wide sheets of smoke creeping and curling from between the shingles; then there was a crackling, volleys of cracklings, a vast barrage of cracklings and swiftly one huge explosion of fire. The whole warehouse was enveloped in fierce flame, sweeping upward into the night.

It and its contents went roaring up to the sky and the crowd cheered frantically, delighted with the spectacle, delighted with itself—so delighted that somebody—rolled another barrel of tar against another warehouse. It burned as brilliantly as the other; and there was more cheering and more frantic delight. The mob spread out and grew busy—busier and busier. More warehouses were kindling; and then piles of lumber began to go—huge fields of lumber—acres and acres of lumber leaping into red flame. Wharves and docks began to blaze and ships at these docks to take fire. When hawsers burned in two the ships went adrift, gigantic torches reeling tipsily on the inlet.