“Indeed, Delancey, I am not at all ready to make an intimate acquaintance with the ‘Pot,’ or ‘Frying Pan,’” again exclaimed the lawyer fireman.

Still, Hal insisted upon following, in hopes the stranger would tack about.

“You have no fears?” said Hal, to his brother fireman, the merchant.

“Why no,” he returned, calculatingly; “that is, if the risk is not too great.”

Now the waters became wilder, lashing against the rocks, leaping and foaming; it was a dangerous thing to venture much farther, they must turn back now or not at all; a few strokes more and they must keep on steadily through the gate—­one false movement would be their destruction.  The stranger’s bark gradually distanced them—­they saw it enter among the whirling eddies—­he missed the sound of their measured strokes, glanced back, lost the balance of his oars, his boat upset, and Hal saw neither no more.  There, on that moonless, starless night, when the darkness was blackest, just before the dawn, the brave fireman had gone down in that whistling, groaning, shrieking, moaning, Tartarean whirlpool!  Mute horror stood on every face.  Hal’s grasp slackened; the lawyer quickly seized the oars, and turned the boat’s prow towards the city.

“Do you not think we could save him?” gasped Hal, his face like the face of the dead.

“Save him!” ejaculated the lawyer; “that’s worse than mad!  Malafert alone can raise his bones along with ‘Pot Rock.’”

Hal groaned aloud.  Perhaps the stranger had no intention of going up the river, until driven by them.  It was a miserable thought, and hung with a leaden weight upon Hal’s spirit.  He remained at home all the next day, worn out and dejected.  May rallied him.

“How I pity you, poor firemen!  You get up at all times of the night, work like soldiers on a campaign, and sometimes do not even get a ’thank you’ for your pay.  You know I told you never to be a fireman!”

“I wish I had followed your advice,” answered Hal, with something very like a groan.

May started.  She noticed how very pale he was, and bade him lie down on the sofa.  She brought a cushion, and sat down by his side.

“Now, Hal, you must tell me what troubles you.  Has any one been slandering the firemen?  I will not permit that now, since I have so kind a cousin in their ranks,” said May, with a wicked little smile.

In vain she racked her brain for something to amuse him; Hal would not be amused.  She bade him come to the window and watch the fountain in Union Park, but he strolled back immediately to the luxurious sofa, and buried his face in his hands.  At last he could endure his horrid secret no longer; it scorched his brain and withered his very heart.

“May, you have not asked me if I saw the mysterious fireman last night?”

May could not trust her voice to reply.

“He was at the fire.”

“Was he?”