When Ned felt that he could breathe, he gathered up his sore bones and ran down the alley, up the side street, and out upon the broad, deserted avenue. The lamps were all out, municipal thrift trusting for illumination to the wavering moon. A blue light glimmering far up the dusky hill told him that the "owl car" had just passed. An hour or so must elapse before another would appear, for they ran at long intervals. He looked about for a policeman. He saw none. The city seemed dead. He was unfamiliar with this quarter of the town, but as he sped along he came within sight of a city square. There he knew, under the trees, were often tramps, spending the night on the benches,--sometimes loafers of a better class belated and sleeping off the effect of their potations. Doubtless some of them would know where was the nearest police station or fire-alarm. All that he had seen seemed now so like a dream that he wondered whether after all he were not mistaken, whether the "first player" could really intend to burn the theatre. As he paused for breath he glanced back in the direction of the building and diagonally across the darkly massed trees of the square. The high steeple of the cathedral was purpling slowly in the dun-colored gloom. Its gilded cross sprang suddenly into view, emblazoned upon the night like a sign in the sky. The dense foliage of the square was outlined against an angry crimson glare in the distance, ever widening and ever deepening. Into its midst a yellow pennon of flame flaunted to the breeze. The heavy tones of a fire-bell smote the silence suddenly. There was a movement under the trees. The loungers on the benches were waking. Far up dark intersecting streets came the swift footfalls of boys, who spring up mysteriously at any hour of the night or day, eager to crowd around a fire. There was too the heavy tread of unseen policemen striding through the gloom. The sharp gong of the hose-carriage clamoring in the distance cleared a pass-way for the swinging gallop of its white horses. As it flashed around the corner and whirled out of sight in a second it looked like the chariot and coursers of Phœbus called out on a false alarm of dawn. Two or three hoarse drunken voices were aimlessly calling "Fi-ah! Fi-ah!" and one small boy, excitedly tangling his suspenders as he sought to adjust them, ran along in the middle of the street ceaselessly vociferating, "Number Six is a-comin'!"