The crowd below answered the outburst with a hideous chorus of shrieks and yells, and surged madly towards the doomed house.
There was no gleam of pity or devotion in those lurid, upturned faces.
To many of them it was a show, a spectacle; to others a terrible nightmare, to others a cruel freak of Providence, calling forth curses.
The flames, spreading downwards, had already reached the second floor, when a window suddenly opened; and a woman with wild dishevelled hair, put out her head and screamed wildly.
The crowd caught sight of her, and answered with something like a jeer.
"It's Black Sal," some one shouted; "she's kotched it at last." "Why don't you jump ?" shouted another.
"Booh ?" shouted a third.

"Who skinned the cripple ?" The woman gave a scared look up and down.

The flames at that moment wrapped round the window, and, with a wild howl, the crowd saw her disappear into the room.
Jeffreys all this time had been standing wedged in the crowd, a spectator of that hideous scene, and now a witness of this last tragedy.
With a desperate effort he fought his way to the front, hitting right and left to make himself a passage.

It was a minute before he got through.

Then the crowd, realising as if by intuition his purpose, staggered back, and raised a howl as he dashed into the door of the half-consumed building.
The first flight of steps was still intact, and he was up it in a moment; but as he dashed up the second the smoke whirled down in his face and half-choked him.