“For God’s sake, Scimmins,” cried Sartwell, who from his position could see the fear-demented man pressing the crowd on Braunt and hampering him, “be a man, and stand back! Don’t fight! There’s time for all to get out.” “Ah’ll crack your skull for ye!” shouted Braunt hoarsely, over his shoulder. “Remember ye’ve to pass me before ye get to the stair, an’ little good your fightin’ ’ill do ye.” At last the knot dissolved, as a long jam on a river suddenly gives way when the key-log is removed. Braunt stood now with his back against the door-post, while Sartwell took his place at the turn of the stairs, strenuously flinging torn and ragged items of humanity into safety. Several of those who had been at the point of the wedge lay at his feet, senseless or dead--there was no time to discover which. Now and then a girl he hurled down the stair tottered, fell, and lay where she fell. “Why doesn’t some one come to carry those women out?” groaned the manager, who had asked one after another whom he had saved to send help to him. At last two of his men appeared. “It’s a bad fire, Mr. Sartwell,” said one. “Yes, yes, I know. Take down two each, if you can, and send up more men. Tell the clerks to see that the iron doors between the buildings are closed. Are the firemen here?” “Five engines, sir.” “Good! Get down as quickly as you can, and send up more help.” “Ye devil! Do ye think to sneak past me?” cried Braunt, seizing Scimmins, who had at last fought his way through. “Don’t waste time with that man, Braunt. My God, don’t you see the flames! The roof will be in on us in a minute! Fling him down here!” “He stays behind me till the last soul’s out,” snarled Braunt, between his teeth. Sartwell said no more. It was no time to argue or expostulate, and Braunt, although pinning Scimmins to the wall behind him, continued to extricate the women as fast as the manager could pass them along. The knot was continually forming at the door, and was as continually unloosed by the stalwart, indefatigable arms of Braunt. “You are smothering me,” whined Scimmins. “I hope so,” said Braunt. The situation was now hardly to be borne. The smoke ascending the stairway met the smoke pouring through the door, yet, in spite of the smoke, the room was bright, for a steady column of flame roared up through the shaft, making it like a blast-furnace. “Are they all out?” gasped Sartwell, coughing, for the smoke was choking him. “Ah think so, sir; but Ah’ll have a look. Some maybe on the floor,”--and Braunt, as he spoke, hurled Scimmins into the room ahead of him, pushing the door shut, so that Sartwell would not hear the man if he cried out. The manager, strangling in the smoke, appeared to have forgotten that Scimmins was there. “Down on your hands and knees, ye hound, and see if any o’ the women ye felled are there!” Scimmins was already on his knees. “There’s no one here. Open the door!--open the door!” he cried. Braunt opened the door an inch or two.