Cripps, a sly youth, freckled and sandy, had lain down carefully on his side, in silence, with the instinct of a trapped animal to “lie low” and wait. He had joined the “Jiggers” because the Fire Commissioner was of their party and he looked for promotion to come when the old chief, Borden, should be deposed and his successor named from the faction which the Commissioner favored. He refused to consider his present situation as more than a temporary interruption of his plans. He kept his mind off the thought of death, and busied himself trying to make his mouth “water” with the thought of cool lager beer in foaming schooners. He even achieved a secret smile. The other men lay quiet--some flat on their backs, staring glassily at the steel beams overhead; some panting with convulsive chests as the heat increased; some on their faces with their heads on their arms, gagged and stifling; some drawn up in strained and twisted attitudes, as if in pain. In their swollen eyeballs sudden lights darted and burst. Above the noise of the blood in their ears, they heard a sound of moaning. A choked voice began to struggle in the first wanderings of delirium. “Steady, there! Steady!” Captain Keighley called out. He was standing up, his arms crossed, his face drenched with perspiration--in absolute and unquestioned command at last. He was still standing there when the lamp burned low, flickered and went out. The darkness was soon unbearable with heat; and Keighley put down his hammer and began to strip himself to his underclothes and rubber boots. He could hear the men tearing at their woolen underwear as they ripped it off. Someone was singing a German ballad in a shrill nasal whine. Suddenly there was an outbreak of oaths. “Shine” had begun to curse. Having arrived at an insane notion that Keighley had penned them all in there, he was promising himself an indescribable revenge if he ever escaped. He kicked out at Cripps--who had torn the bandage from his mouth to get more imaginary beer, and was gurgling to himself over it--and that started a confusion of crazy voices and weak complaints. A man crawled over Sturton and screamed when “Turk” seized him by the throat, struggling, with an uproar that set all bedlam loose. The men began to fight, clutching at one another, rolling about with feeble blows, writhing like eels baked alive in an oven, like the lost souls in old pictures of hell. “Shine” leaped on Keighley and went down under a blow that almost split his forehead. The place was a pandemonium--awful--indescribable.... Fifteen minutes later the silence of exhaustion had settled down on hoarse breathings and low groans. And Captain Keighley, sitting with his back to the door--his knees drawn up, his head resting on them, nauseated--was struggling against a whirling lapse of consciousness. IV