The girl herself was carried to the arms of her father, who, just awaking from his swoon, cried in a gasping voice ‘Inez! Inez! where is my Inez?’ and plucking a sharp-pointed dagger from his breast, he was about to end his agony by thrusting it to the hilt in his heart. Quicker than lightning, the man who was called Charley grasped the wrist of the desperate man, and holding it like a vice in his stalwart grasp, pointed with the other hand to the girl, and said in his rough masculine voice: ‘None of that! If I’d thought you would take it so hard that we had saved your daughter’s life, but we would have—no, not that exactly, for she’s worth saving on her own account!’ While Charley was delivering this speech, the cinders were raining down on his head, and he shook them off as a lion would have shaken great flies from his forehead, but others were not so insensible to a shower of fire-brands, and the Senor was dragged farther from the scene of ruin. When the Senor perceived that his Inez was really by his side, he gave vent to the most extravagant exclamations of joy. Rushing to the Chief Engineer, whom he supposed to be the savior of his child, he clasped the sturdy fireman in his arms, called him every name that is flattering to the pride of man, emptied his pockets of all his gold, and tried to force into his hands a precious ring that he wore on his finger, and which was said to contain a diamond of great value. Charley said that his duty called him elsewhere, and we next saw him plunging into the thickest of the throng to bring up his forces to the principal point of attack, and to expedite the tearing up of the planks on the street, for they had become thoroughly ignited in some places, and the flames were marching through the slight wooden buildings of the town with the imperious step of a conqueror. No sooner had the young lady recovered consciousness, than she raised herself to her feet, and looked anxiously on every side as if in search of some object which she could not find. ‘Here comes your father,’ said Cardwell, who had been the most officious in bearing off the girl to a place of safety, and applying cold water and other restoratives to her face and temples. Inez took the hand of her father, but still her eyes wandered through the throng as if seeking another, and while she was led away by the old Senor, she walked listlessly and thoughtfully, as if something pressed heavily upon her mind.