“Professor!  I can’t stand this any longer!  I’ll do it!” exclaimed Ishmael.

“Do what?” asked the astonished artist.

“Get those boys out.”

“You will kill yourself for nothing.”

“No, there’s a chance of saving them, professor, and I’ll risk it!” said Ishmael, preparing for a start.

“You are mad; you shall not do it!” exclaimed the professor, seizing the boy and holding him fast.

“Let me go, professor!  Let me go, I tell you!  Let me go, then!  Israel Putman would have done it, and so will I!” cried Ishmael, struggling, breaking away, and dashing into the burning building.

“But George Washington wouldn’t, you run mad maniac, he would have had more prudence!” yelled the professor, beside himself with grief and terror.

But Ishmael was out of hearing.  He dashed into the front hall, and up the main staircase, through volumes of smoke that rolled down and nearly suffocated him.  Ishmael’s excellent memory stood him in good stead now.  He recollected to have read that people passing through burning houses filled with smoke must keep their heads as near the floor as possible, in order to breathe.  So when he reached the first landing, where the fire in the wing was at its worst, and the smoke was too dense to be inhaled at all, he ducked his head quite low, and ran through the hall and up the second flight of stairs to the floor upon which the boys slept.

He dashed on to the front room and tried the door.  It was fastened within.  He rapped and called and shouted aloud.  In vain!  The dwellers within were dead, or dead asleep, it was impossible to tell which.  He threw himself down upon the floor to get a breath of air, and then arose and renewed his clamor at the door.  He thumped, kicked, shrieked, hoping either to force the door or awake the sleepers.  Still in vain!  The silence of death reigned within the chamber; while volumes of lurid red smoke began to fill the passage.  This change in the color of the smoke warned the brave young boy that the flames were approaching.  At this moment, too, he heard a crash, a fall, and a sudden roaring up of the fire, somewhere near at hand.  Again in frantic agony he renewed his assault upon the door.  This time it was suddenly torn open by the boys within.

And horrors of horrors! what a scene met his appalled gaze!  One portion of the floor of the room had fallen in, and the flames were rushing up through the aperture from the gulf of fire beneath.  The two boys, standing at the open door, were spell-bound in a sort of panic.

“What is it?” asked one of them, as if uncertain whether this were reality or nightmare.

“It is fire!  Don’t you see!  Quick!  Seize each of you a blanket!  Wrap yourselves up and follow me!  Stoop near the floor when you want to breathe!  Shut your eyes and mouths when the flame blows too near.  Now then!”

It is marvelous how quickly we can understand and execute when we are in mortal peril.  Ishmael was instantly understood and obeyed.  The lads quick as lightning caught up blankets, enveloped themselves, and rushed from the sinking room.