The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment.

“How can he be reached?” asked Lurida.  “Is there nobody that will venture his life to save a brother like that?”

“I will venture mine,” said Euthymia.

“No! no!” shrieked Lurida,—­“not you! not you!  It is a man’s work, not yours!  You shall not go!” Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theories in this supreme moment.  But Euthymia was not to be held back.  Taking a handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail of water and bound it about her head.  Then she took several deep breaths of air, and filled her lungs as full as they would hold.  She knew she must not take a single breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it, and Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long that more than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come up again.  So rapid were her movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, who would forcibly have prevented her from carrying out her purpose.  Her imperious determination was not to be resisted.  And so Euthymia, a willing martyr, if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within the veil that hid the sufferer.

Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground.  She was the first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia disappeared in the smoke of the burning building.  Even the rector grew very white in the face,—­so white that one of his vestry-men begged him to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on his forehead, to his great disgust and manifest advantage.  The old landlady was crying and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes and shaking his head sadly.

“She will nevar come out alive,” he said solemnly.

“Nor dead, neither,” added the carpenter.  “Ther’ won’t be nothing left of neither of ’em but ashes.”  And the carpenter hid his face in his hands.

The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a “hangkercher,”—­it had served to carry bait that morning,—­and was making use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running down his cheeks.  The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with these more quiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, coming alike from old and young.

All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like a tableau.  The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and before they had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or seemed lost.  They felt that they should never look again on either of those young faces.

The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional by habit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for the funeral sermon.  The first that occurred to him was this,—­vaguely, of course, in the background of consciousness: 

“Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of the fire.”