As if in anger, the broken stalks spouted forth, with a hiss and a rush, blinding jets of liquid white fire, which tore at the ceiling angrily and roared and crackled. From the broken stalks it spread to the others, and in a moment jets of liquid white fire were blazing and crackling upward from all the stalks in the room, and the terrified captives were in the very midst of it. It ran up their robes and showered on them from the ceiling; it became denser and angrier; it was all but unbearable, though they felt it in only a tiny fraction of its real strength; in another instant the frail white gowns must surely be consumed. But in some strange way the gowns shed off the liquid fire, and remained unscorched. For a moment the sufferers were stupefied. They were unable to move. Freddie tried to scream, but he could make no sound; he almost fainted away; but he felt, through it all, the sturdy arm of Mr. Toby tight about him. They pushed on in a close body and passed the center of the room; the white glare became more blinding, the roar and crackle more deafening; they were surrounded, cut off, in the midst of destruction; they were bewildered; they stopped again; there was no use in going back; they must get forward through the furnace at any cost; they made a new start; and in a frenzy of terror, their hands before their eyes, with a rush they gained the door. They crowded against it; they pushed and beat upon it; it gave way before them; they rushed through, and it closed behind them of its own accord. They were standing in broad daylight on the sidewalk of a city street, under a high blank wall, with shops on the opposite side; each with an hour-glass, empty of sand, in his right hand, and each clad only in a long white night-gown. CHAPTER XXIV DISENCHANTMENT COMPLETE They looked behind them. A high stone wall rose at their backs, and in it was no sign of a door. They looked across the street. It was a narrow street, paved with cobble-stones; on the opposite side, where a row of little low shops stretched away on either hand, a few people were going in and out at the doors, and a few others were walking at some distance, before the shop-windows. An ox-cart was coming slowly down the street. Freddie had sometimes dreamed of being out among people in broad daylight in his night-gown, and he now felt the same terror he had felt in those dreams; he looked anxiously at the shops for a place in which to hide. No one appeared to observe them yet, but they would soon be seen, and it would be dreadful, unless they could find shelter without a moment's delay. "We had better run into one of those shops," said he, breathlessly, "and ask them to hide us until we can get some clothes." "Ah, no," said a soft voice beside him, at his right. "It is not a shop that I must go to now. I must hurry home."