At least it seemed laughter, for the mouth was agape and the lips grinned back, but there was no sound from the lips and no light in the fixed eyes.

Laughter indeed it was, but it was the laughter of death, as if the soul of the man, in dying, recognized its natural wild element and had burst into convulsive mirth.

So he sat there, untouched as yet by the wide river of fire, chuckling at his destiny.

The wall of fire closed across the doorway again and the work of red ruin went on with a crashing of timbers from the upper part of the building.
As that living wall shut solidly, Jacqueline leaped forward, shouting, like a man, words of hope and rescue; Pierre caught her barely in time--a precarious grasp on the wrist from which she nearly wrenched herself free and gained the entrance to the fire.

But the jerk threw her off balance for the least fraction of an instant, and the next moment she was safe in his arms.
Safe?
He might as well have held a wildcat, or captured with his bare hands a wild eagle, strong of talon and beak.