Fire escape

“ As the inhabitants of regions which the fire had freshly invaded rushed to escape, they plunged into winding alleys overarched by meeting flames, or their flight was impeded by smouldering ruins, or they were overwhelmed by the thunderous fall of some huge building, many, losing their heads altogether, stood stupefied with despair, and the smoke stifled them, or the fire scorched them, until the streets were filled with charred corpses. ”

“ Some, however, losing all hope of escape, piled together a heap of mats, bedding, and other combustibles, and, kindling them with their torches, threw themselves into the flames, intending in this way to set fire to the building, and to perish in one general conflagration with their murderers. ”

“ They came trudging from out the smoke clouds, and across the untilled fields, alone, or in little groups, some armed, more weaponless, here and there a bloody bandage showing, or a limp bespeaking a wound; dirty, unshaven men, in uniforms begrimed and tattered, disorganized, swearing at each other, casting frightened glances backward with no other thought or desire save to escape the pursuing terror behind. ”

“ One man descended a well in order to escape a raging fire, and had a most miraculous escape from a terrible death, when the woodwork on the top of the well caught fire, and crashed down the shaft, but was happily extinguished in the few feet of water remaining in the well. ”

“ Blinded by smoke and flame, made frantic by the red death that was sweeping the forest, confused, terror-stricken, weakened by gas and fumes, the poor beasts had finally crowded together and perished under the onrushing wave of fire. ”

“ Against that curtain of blaze, strangely beautiful in its sinuous strength, I watch the black silhouettes of men running hither and thither like rats, gutting the houses, looting the stores, tearing the hearts out of the homes. The fire seems a great bird, and from its nest of furnace heat it spreads its flapping wings over the city. ”

“ It was the greatest force in nature. It was fire. On one hand, I seemed cool and calculated the chances; on the other, I had flashes in my brain, and kept crying out crazily, in a voice like a whisper: “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
But presently the wall of fire rolled by and took the roar with it. Dense billows of smoke followed, and hid everything in opaque darkness. I heard the hiss of failing sparks and the crackle of burning wood, and occasionally the crash of a failing branch. It was intolerably hot, but I could stand the heat better than the air. ”

“ Meanwhile on every side the flames shot up around the stakes, and glared with hideous brightness, and sent up huge tongues of waving light, and each stake became a torch of hell, and black smoke swirled around them, and groans and cries of anguish arose which were drowned in bursts of music and laughter and ribald songs. And all the while the moon was silvering the rich foliage, and the stars shone down with peaceful rays over that revelry of hell, and the smoke and flame were to those poor sufferers as chariots of fire and horses of fire to bear their souls to heaven. ”

“ Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the rear, and he could hear the cry of Fire mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. ”

“ As children, many of us have played with it; some of us have seen an outbreak of fire. First a small tongue-like flame appears; it grows into a devastating fury of heat. We out here in the field have seen more than enough of it. ”

“ There's a place, far away from here, where a blaze like that comes from the ground sometimes when a camp fire is built too near it. But the wind whisks the flames out and then there's nothing but a smell. ”

“ The blinding effect of the dense smoke that filled the atmosphere, the suffocating smell of the burning mass of vegetable matter, and the lurid glare of the red flames that came on so rapidly, overpowered alike the horses and their riders: while the roaring of the fire—which sounded like a mighty rushing cataract—and the oppressive heat, seemed to confuse the senses, and destroy the vital powers of the more feeble and ill-mounted of the fugitives. ”

“ There he was, all torn and bloody from the knife-blades of the grass, the rocks blazing under the afternoon sun—the sky molten brass—and the smoke of the fire driving towards him. He dared not stay there. Death he did not mind, but torture! Far away beyond the smoke he heard shouts and cries. ”

“ If the pursuers were on their track, it might be noticed; as upon this lonely route a fire would indicate nothing else than the camp of some one on a journey. But the stomachs of our travellers cried for food, and it was at length resolved to light the fire, but not until after sunset, when the smoke could be no longer seen, and the blaze would be hidden behind the thick bushes of mollé. ”

“ A little curl of smoke, a tiny flame struggles for a moment for life. The slightest breath of air falls upon it—a gleam, scarcely larger than a fire-fly among the tangled leaves, and in an instant a lurid flame leaps forth—is kindled into a furnace-like glare, and directly a wandering hill of flame is sweeping resistlessly over the prairie. ”

“ The fire was advancing rapidly and the heat was terrific. Choking and gasping in the stinging resinous smoke, the men strove in frenzy of haste to complete the fire-break before the flames should reach them. ”

“ How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical fireflies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap their hands! Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in the sky when the flame of the fire has died down. ”

“ It seemed I watched, or read, or dreamed some desolating scene of disaster in which human life went overboard wholesale, as though one threw a hatful of insects into a blazing fire. This idea of burning, of thick suffocating smoke and savage flame, coloured the entire experience. ”

“ A flame shoots up, and the milker has scarcely time to reach the door when the whole building is on fire. She, with her children, rush into the street, as the flame comes in through roof, window, and doorway of her dwelling. Then the roar of the wind-swept flame and the appalling cry of fire!
3. But the city is prepared for these accidents. The fire-bells ring out their alarm. Trained horses take their places by the steam fire-engines, and the heart has scarcely time to beat before they are on a mad gallop down the streets. ”

“ All the people look and wonder,
This the chorus of the women:
"Whence are rising all these smoke-clouds,
Why this dreadful fire in Northland?
Is not like the smoke of camp-fires,
Is too large for fires of shepherds!" ”

“ Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand. ”

“ In the frantic hurry and agitation of the moment, it never struck me that I might let out the flame instead of letting in the air. I struck at the skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow. The fire leaped out like a wild beast from its lair. ”

“ Now and then, with a muffled explosion, a sap-filled palm burst. Here, or yonder, some brighter flare showed where the fire had run at one clear leap right to the fronded top of a fern-tree.
Fire-brands and dry-kye, caught up by the swirl, spiralled through the thick air and fell far in advance of the main fire-army, each outpost colonizing into swift destruction.
Already the nearer portion of the opposite cliff-edge was barren and smoking, swept clean of life as a broom might sweep an ant-hill. Tourbillons of dense smoke obscured the sky. ”

“ When the blasts beat loud and the tempests shriek,
And the winds are smote as the chords of a lyre,
I curtain the cold where the corners leak,
Tossing the logs till the flames leap higher,
As I sit on the hearth while the rafters creak,
Feeding the fangs of the hungry fire. ”

“ We could in fancy see those spectral camp-fires which men would build on the earth, if the sun should slow its fires down to about the brilliancy of the moon. It was a great relief to all of us to go into the house, and, before a blazing wood-fire, talk of the end of the world. ”

“ It is at times such as the latter that the man at the fire unlocks his hands. With a swift movement, he reaches down to the fire and seizes a blazing brand. For a moment a trail of fire arcs against the black depths of the forest and falls to the ground. ”

“ The flame gathers into a point; and, at the more advanced part of the curvature, the force and blaze is terrible. A thousand tongues of fire shoot up into the density, and immediately disappear. Who now so venturous as to dash headlong through the hottest flame, and to recover from beneath the choking night his former position? There goes—a hat—a cap—a bonnet! They have taken up their position in the pathway of the devouring flood of fire—and who so brave, so daring, as to extricate his own property from instant destruction? ”

“ Constantly the crystal streams from Engines in full play.
Fire—fire—fire! Fresh force it does acquire!
The rising wind has sent the blaze unto the other side!
Yet men are standing round in torpor most profound;
Rouse ye up! now fall to work, and let your strength be tried!
Fire—fire—fire! Two blocks seem one vast pyre.
Oh, pity the poor houseless ones—fleeing now away!
Screen them from Winter's blast, for they are on you cast—
That sympathy in measure their losses may repay.
Fire—fire—fire! Thank God, the flames expire! ”

“ The sleepers, of all sexes and ages, are to lie there in a row, their feet to the fire, and their heads under the edge of the sloping roof. Nothing could be better contrived. The fire is in front: it is not a fire, but a conflagration—a vast heap of green logs set on fire—of pitch, and split dead-wood, and crackling balsams, raging and roaring. ”

“ Of a trail of the great fire against the sky
Where we can see it, a jet from the innermost fire:
And even in the watery shells that lie
Alive within the cozy under-mire,
A grain of this same fire I can descry.
And then within the screaming birds that fly
Across the lightning when the storm leaps higher;
And then the swirling, flaming folk that try
To come like fire-flames at their fierce desire,
They are as earth’s dread, spurting flames that ply
Awhile and gush forth death and then expire. ”

“ Every now and then they meet with a puff of wind, which will perhaps strike a great wall of fire rushing up-hill as straight as a line, and divide it into two fiery horns like a crescent; then as the breeze changes again, the tips of flame will gradually approach each other till they meet, and go on again in a solid mass of fire. ”

“ No earthly hands kindled that fire. From its sheeted flame and wreaths of sulphurous smoke glares out upon thee the eye of that enemy who was a murderer from the beginninsr. It is a fire that burns to the lowest hell! ”

“ During one of its wilder displays the fire rolled forward, an enormous horizontal whirl of flame, and then, with thunder and roar, the molten flames swept upward into a wall of fire; this tore to pieces, collapsed, and fell forward in fiery disappearing clouds. With amazing quickness the splendid hanging garden on the terraced heights was crushed and blackened. By my promontory went this magnificent zigzag surging front of flame, blowing the heavens full of sparks and smoke and flinging enormous fiery rockets. ”

“ Everywhere was fire—fire which raged about the sheds, fire which licked its way along the railings of the cattlepans, which ate at the chutes and connections, fire which seethed and spit and crackled. ”

“ Stooping, I picked it up. It lay in the hollow of my hand, and I stood looking at it for a long, long time. “All things come to him who waits.” The origin of the fire was no longer a mystery, but there were other things. We had suffered nearly five years of petty, relentless persecution, and had never, [Pg 67] never by any chance, been able to produce any direct evidence against our enemy. The wind sweeping through the pine boughs on the hillside above had, to my fancy, the sound that a great fire makes; a great fire that, rioting unchecked, leaves suffering and death in its wake. ”

“ That smoke was pouring into the room in clouds now. The single tongue of flame had bred a score, casting a lurid light over the place, and driving black despair into the half-conscious brain of the hopeless victim. ”

“ He said to the first man, "What of your fire?"
And the man said, "I found folk struggling in darkness, and I made a torch of my fire, and showed them the way; now is it well-nigh wasted, yet still it burns."
And he in white said, "It is well; this fire shall never die."
Then came the second, and of him, too, that one asked, "What of your fire?"
And he said, "I found men shivering, with nought to warm them, and I gave my fire, that they might live, and not die."
And he in white answered again, "It is well; this fire too shall never die." ”

“ On all sides houses were on fire, and the falling beams and walls, the bursting flames, the showers of descending sparks, and the bursting shrapnels killing friend and foe alike, created an indescribable jumble. ”

“ Burning brands are blown sixty feet and more over the tops of the highest trees and the heads of the men who are fighting the fire. Before they can check the blaze of the fire nearest them, one beyond them has already been started. ”