“Of those scamps?” Miss Sibson replied truculently. “They had better not touch me!” And she turned the key and slipped out. Nor did she leave the step until Mary had put up the chain and re-locked the door. Mary waited—oh, many, many minutes it seemed—in the gloom of the hall, pierced here and there by a lurid ray; with half her mind on her mother upstairs, and the other half on the ribald laughter, the drunken oaths and threats and curses which penetrated from the Square. It was plain that Miss Sibson had not gone too soon, for twice or thrice the door was struck with some heavy instrument, and harsh voices called on the inmates to open if they did not wish to be burned. Uncertain how the fire advanced, Mary heard them with a sick heart. But she held her ground, until, oh, joy! she heard voices raised in altercation, and among them the schoolmistress’s. A hand knocked thrice, she turned the key and let down the chain. The door opened upon her, and on the steps, with her hand on a man’s shoulder, appeared Miss Sibson. Behind her and her captive, between them and that background of flame and confusion, stood a group of four or five men—dock labourers, in tarpaulins and frocks, who laughed tipsily. “This lad will help to carry your mother out,” Miss Sibson said with the utmost coolness. “Come, my lad, and no nonsense! You don’t want to burn a sick lady in her bed!” “No, I don’t, Missis,” the man grumbled sheepishly. “But I’m none here for that! I’m none here for that, and——” “You’ll do it, all the same,” the schoolmistress replied. “And I want one more. Here, you,” she continued, addressing a grinning hobbledehoy in a sealskin cap. “I know your face, and you’ll want someone to speak for you at the Assizes. Come in, you two, and the rest must wait until the lady’s carried out!” And thereon, with that strange mixture of humanity and unreasoning fury of which the night left many examples, the men complied. The two whom she had chosen entered, the others suffered her to shut the door in their faces. Only, “You’ll be quick!” one bawled after her. “She’s afire next door!”