The smoke and the heat were frightful, suffocating in their intensity.  The roar of the unseen flames seemed to fill the world.

The door swung to behind them.  They stood in seething darkness.

But again the small clinging hand pulled upon the man.

“Quick!” the dancer cried again.

Choked and gasping, but resolute still, he followed.  They ran through a passage that must have been on the very edge of the vortex of flame, for behind them ere they left it a red light glared.

It showed another door in front of them with which the dancer struggled a moment, then flung open.  They burst through it together, and the cold night wind met them like an angel of deliverance.

The man gasped and gasped again, filling his parched lungs with its healing freshness.  His companion uttered a strange, high laugh, and dragged him forth into the open.

They emerged into a narrow alley, surrounded by tall houses.  The night was dark and wet.  The rain pattered upon them as they staggered out into a space that seemed deserted.  The sudden quiet after the awful turmoil they had just left was like the silence of death.

The man stood still and wiped the sweat in a dazed fashion from his face.  The little dancer reeled back against the wall, panting desperately.

For a space neither moved.  Then, terribly, the silence was rent by a crash and the roar of flames.  An awful redness leapt across the darkness of the night, revealing each to each.

The dancer stood up suddenly and made an odd little gesture of farewell; then, swiftly, to the man’s amazement, turned back towards the door through which they had burst but a few seconds before.

He stared for a moment—­only a moment—­not believing he saw aright, then with a single stride he reached and roughly seized the small, oddly-draped figure.

He heard a faint cry, and there ensued a sharp struggle against his hold; but he pinioned the thin young arms without ceremony, gripping them fast.  In the awful, flickering glare above them his eyes shone downwards, dominant, relentless.

“Are you mad?” he said.

The small dark head was shaken vehemently, with gestures curiously suggestive of an imprisoned insect.  It was as if wild wings fluttered against captivity.

And then all in a moment the struggling ceased, and in a low, eager voice the captive began to plead.

“Please, please let me go!  You don’t know—­you don’t understand.  I came—­because—­because—­you called.  But I was wrong—­I was wrong to come.  You couldn’t keep me—­you wouldn’t keep me—­against my will!”

“Do you want to die, then?” the man demanded.  “Are you tired of life?”

His eyes still shone piercingly down, but they read but little, for the dancer’s were firmly closed against them, even while the dark cropped head nodded a strangely vigorous affirmative.