White dust rose from the heap, like smoke from an extinguished fire; and ever, as we looked, spars and splinters of brick tore away from the high fragment yet standing, and plunged with a thud into the wrack underneath.

It was glaringly evident that not long could elapse before wall and man would come down with a hideous, shattering run.  A slip, a wilder clutch at his frail support, might in an instant precipitate the calamity.

Then from the upturned faces of the women cries of pity and anguish broke forth, and men nipped one another’s arms and gasped, and knew not what counsel to offer.

“Do summut! do summut!” cried the women; and their mates only shook off their pleadings with a peevish show of callousness, that was merely the dumb anguish of undemonstrativeness.  For, while their throats were thick, their practical brains were busy.

Some one suggested a ladder, and in a moment there was an aimless scurrying and turning amongst the women.

“Why don’t ’ee stir theeself and hunt for un, Jarge?” panted one that stood near me, twisting hysterically upon a slow youth at her side.

“Shut up, ’Liza!” he answered gruffly; then, with a sort of indrawn gasp—­“Look art the wall, lass—­look art the wall!”

It was obvious to the least knowing what he meant.  To lean so much as a broomstick, it seemed, against that tottering ruin would infallibly complete its destruction.

One foot of the clinging figure high up was seen to move slightly, and a little bomb of mortar span out into the air and burst into dust on a projecting brick.  A long shrill sigh broke from the crowd.

Then the male wiseheads came together, and, desperate to snap the chord of impotent suspense, mooted and rejected plan after plan that their sane judgment knew from the first to be impracticable.

At the outset it was plainly impossible for a soul to approach the ruins.  Apart from the almost certain mangling such a venture would entail upon the explorer, the least stirring or shifting of the great heap of rubbish flung about the base of the wall would certainly risk the immediate collapse of the latter.

Success, it was evident, must come, if at all, from a distance—­but how?

One suggested slinging a rope from window to window of adjacent houses across the path of the broken chimney-stack—­a good method of rescue had circumstances lent themselves to it.  They did not.  On the ruin side a wide space intervened; on the other, the sister house to that which had fallen, and which was also included in the order of demolition, was itself affected by the loss of its support, and leaned in a sinister manner, its party walls bulged and rent towards the scene of devastation.

Nothing short of the great Roc itself could, it seemed, snatch the poor fellow from his death perch.

There came suddenly an ominous silence.  Then strode out in front of his fellows—­and he moved so close to the ruin that the women whimpered and held one another—­an old, rough-bearded chap in stained corduroy.