“He cannot move from his bed.”

One of the visitors at the village,—­a millionaire, it was said,—­a kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones: 

“A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!”

The fresh-water fisherman muttered, “I should like to save the man and to see the money, but it ain’t a thaousan’ dollars, nor ten thaousan’ dollars, that’ll pay a fellah for burnin’ to death,—­or even chokin’ to death, anyhaow.”

The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, recent or old, shook his head.

“The stairs have been shored up,” he said, “and when the fists that holds ’em up goes, down they’ll come.  It ain’t safe for no man to go over them stairs.  Hurry along your ladder,—­that’s your only chance.”

All was wild confusion around the burning house.  The ladder they had gone for was missing from its case,—­a neighbor had carried it off for the workmen who were shingling his roof.  It would never get there in time.  There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a mile from the lakeside settlement.  Some were throwing on water in an aimless, useless way; one was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe:  it seemed like doing something, at least.  But all hope of saving Maurice was fast giving way, so rapid was the progress of the flames, so thick the cloud of smoke that filled the house and poured from the windows.  Nothing was heard but confused cries, shrieks of women, all sorts of orders to do this and that, no one knowing what was to be done.  The ladder!  The ladder!  Five minutes more and it will be too late!

In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had stopped his work of arranging Maurice’s books in the same way as that in which they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction of the sound, little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burning house.  “Some chimney afire,” he said to himself; but he would go and take a look, at any rate.

Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death, two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect, had suddenly joined the throng.  “The Wonder” and “The Terror” of their school-days—­Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just come from the shore, where they had left their wherry.  A few hurried words told them the fearful story.  Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamber to which every eye was turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadful death.  All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocation rather than by the flames, which would soon be upon him.  The man who had attended him had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back out of the door, almost strangled by the smoke.  A thousand dollars had been offered to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had dared to make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if the smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they fell.