And what trifle is there of less importance than a window-curtain swayed by the midnight breeze?
There was such a curtain swinging idly in the window of a dimly lighted room as the clocks in the tall church towers tolled1 the solemn hour of midnight. The wind was high now, and the snow, which had been falling for nearly six hours, was heaped upon the roofs of the tall houses, and lay in huge drifts about the streets, while the flakes2 which filled the keen winter air were blown so sharply in the faces of pedestrians3 that men found walking possible only by keeping to the middle of the street, and bending their heads down to the sharp blasts. Now and then a policeman, muffled4 up to his eyes, walked along, trying the doors of shops and other places of business to see that thieves were not busy during the storm.
As the night wore on, the passers-by appeared 338at rarer intervals5, and the snow, undisturbed by man or beast, allowed itself to be whirled and twisted by the wind into fantastic shapes, that changed with every fresh gust6. One o’clock sounded from many a brazen7 tongue, and the wind, as if it heard in the sharp, vibrant8 note a new signal, seemed to grow suddenly in strength and swept across the city with fiercer and louder blasts, while the snow fell in blinding masses on roof and pavement.
The same wind coming with awful fury up the broad, deserted9 avenue, struck with full force against the splendid hotel, and pouring through the half-open window in the dimly lighted room set the white window-curtain swaying and flapping with renewed life.
“An awful night for a fire!” muttered a belated citizen, as he mounted his doorstep and shook the snow from his clothing in his marble-tiled vestibule.
It was indeed an awful night for a fire, but the cold and weary citizen dismissed all anxiety from his mind, and sought his bed, happy in the knowledge that there were scattered10 about the great sleeping city fire-engines, with swift horses to draw them, and companies of vigilant11, courageous12 men ready to hurry to 339the scene of disaster at a moment’s warning. And very soon the belated citizen slept too, while the storm outside raged with increased fury, and the snow swept down from the heavens and was piled in great drifts beneath the shadows of the tall building.
And down in Chief Trask’s quarters nearly a mile away Bruce Decker slumbered13 peacefully, with his turnout on the floor beside him, while the horses stamped uneasily in their stalls, and the two men on watch sat close to the stove and talked in low tones about fires that they had known on just such windy, snowy nights in years gone by. Outside the truck-house the wind howled dismally15, and the snow swept through the street in pitiless, blinding gusts16, while up-town the same blasts paused for a moment in their northerly flight to play with the white window-curtain that was swinging and flapping now with increased violence in the half-lighted chamber17.
And throughout the storm Bruce slept as calmly as a child, knowing nothing of all that that window-curtain meant for him. A gust fiercer than the others tore the light band which held the curtain to the wall and sent it fluttering against the gas jet. It blazed up and caught the woodwork about the window and 340then another gust of wind, pausing in its swift flight to the far north, scattered the blazing particles about the room, and fanned the flames that were eating their way through the handsome woodwork. Outside, beneath the window where the curtain had flapped for a moment before, the snow lay in huge untrodden drifts. There was no one there to note the blaze which had started in the room on the fifth floor, nor was there any chance watcher in the silent houses over the way to give the alarm.
It was twenty minutes after one when the idle wind blew the curtain against the flame, and at precisely18 twenty-five minutes of two a servant rushed, bareheaded, into the street, and, breaking for himself a path through the heavy drifts of snow, made straight for a lamp-post with red glass in its lamp that stood two blocks away. There was a red box on this lamp-post, and, although his fingers were numb19 with cold, the servant had it open in a jiffy, and in another second had pulled down the hook which he found inside. Before he had removed his hand from the box the number of the station had been received at headquarters and the night operator had sent the alarm to the companies in the immediate20 341vicinity of the fire. A few seconds later half a dozen truck and engine companies, warned by the electric current, had started from their quarters and were on their way through the fierce, pelting21 storm. The men were buttoning their coats and pulling their fire-helmets well down over their heads as they were borne on truck and engine through the silent streets. There was no time for ceremony or roll-call in the houses into which the electricity had come with its dread22 warning. Not one of those men against whose stern, set faces the wind blew the keen flakes of snow, knew what awaited him at the end of this midnight journey. They were actuated by but one purpose, and that was to be at the fire as soon as possible.
And as the firemen bore down in swift flight from the four points of the compass upon the doomed23 structure, servants went hurrying through the corridors, knocking on every door and arousing the sleeping guests with shrill24 cries of “Fire!” Men, women, and children were emerging from their rooms, some calm and cool, others stricken with an awful terror, some in their night-clothes, and others partly dressed, and all hurrying as fast as they could to the staircase or elevator.
342And then a cry went up in every corridor, “The elevator’s afire! Make for the staircase!”
It was indeed true. The elevator shaft25, acting26 as a draft like the tall chimney of a manufactory, had drawn27 the flames toward itself with resistless force, and the fire was now roaring and raving28 up the square shaft, burning the woodwork and spreading destruction from floor to floor.
A stranger, seeing the awful conflagration29 that had broken out so suddenly on that night of storm and snow, would have said, without hesitation30, that the city was doomed to a repetition of that hurricane of smoke and flames that swept through Chicago years ago, and left of that fair city nothing but a waste of smoking ashes. The most destructive of all elements had begun its deadly work, and who could say what limit there would be to the destruction of life and property which would result?
But, happily for the sleeping city, there was arrayed that night against the devouring31 flames, the Fire Department of New York—the bravest and brainiest of men, armed with the finest appliances that modern science could produce—and it was with a knowledge of that fact and with a confidence in the courage, skill and fidelity32 of this branch of the municipal government, that men and women throughout the snow-covered town slept on peacefully throughout the storm.
“The horses bounded to their places.”—Page 343.
343And the electricity flashing along the wire from the headquarters up-town entered the silent truck house ruled by Chief Trask, and with one stroke of the gong transformed it into a scene of activity. The men who were on watch on the ground floor, sprang from their seats by the stove, and the horses, released by the electric current, bounded to their places, three in front of the heavy truck, and one between the shafts33 of the chief’s red wagon34.
And the same alarm which rang out in the lower floor, sounded also in the room above, where the men lay sleeping. Bruce heard it just as he was dreaming of the old days in the village beside Lake Ontario, and he sprang to the floor, and struggled into his turnout, before he fairly realized that he was in New York, and not in the country. But, quick as he was, he was not a second ahead of the other men, and as he slid down one of the shining poles, he found that fully14 half the company had got down before him. By this 344time the horses were all in their places, and the men had just finished hitching35. The alarm was still ringing on the gong, and although Charley Weyman leaped to his place in the driver’s seat, the company did not start. It was a first alarm, but not one on which they were due. For a few moments they waited, while the horses tugged36 and strained at their bits, and stamped on the wooden floor in their eagerness to be off. Then the second alarm came, and Tom Brophy, who was at the wheel, drew on a pair of heavy woolen37 mittens38, while the men pulled their thick caps down over their heads, and Weyman exclaimed, “Look out, fellows, we’ll get a third for that, sure!”
Bruce had watched these preparations with considerable excitement, and at the suggestion of one of the men, had pulled on a heavy skull-cap, and buttoned his thick overcoat close up to his neck. He was trembling violently, but whether it was from the cold or excitement he did not know. He had never been out on a third alarm before, and the thought that the very next minute might send him out into the biting storm on an errand such as the one that had cost his father his life, sent the blood tingling39 through his veins40.
345“Jump in, Bruce!”
It was Chief Trask who said this. And as the boy made answer he continued in his sharp soldierly voice, “If we get a third alarm I want you to come with me in the wagon.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the brass41 gong sounded for a third time, and almost instantly the doors were thrown back with a roar and rumble42, there was a rattle43 of the ropes which supported the harness, as Weyman pulled his reins44 with a sharp and sudden jerk, and Bruce, who by this time was seated in the chief’s wagon with his superior officer beside him, felt the horse bounding forward, and the next moment was out in the blinding storm.
Strange to say he had kept his wits about him and knew in what part of the town the alarm-box from which the signal had come was situated45. As they passed over the threshold, Chief Trask turned the horse sharply to the left, and then without a word, placed the reins in the boy’s hands, stooped down and drew his helmet from under the seat of the wagon, and put it on, and then buttoned his jacket tightly about his neck and peered forward through the falling snow trying to catch a glimpse of the distant fire.
346“And now my chance has come,” said Bruce Decker to himself, for what with the cold air in his face and the necessity for careful driving, his excitement had vanished, and he felt as cool as one of the snowflakes that settled on his cheek. “I’m going to a big fire now, and I’m going to make a record if it costs me a leg.”
And he drove on through the snow with Chief Trask sitting in silence by his side, and the hook and ladder company thundering along close behind them.
“Turn here?” he said to his superior as they drew near a broad thoroughfare leading up-town.
“Yes, and hurry up too,” was the reply, and as he pulled the horse’s head around at the intersection46 of the two streets, he saw several blocks ahead of him a brilliant, ruddy glare on the white snow that showed where the conflagration was. He knew at once that it was a big fire, and just then Charley Weyman, who had been rapidly gaining on him, turned his horses to the left and attempted to go by him. This was something the boy had not been looking for; he well knew that bad as it was to be beaten in the race to a fire by a rival company, it would be 347still worse to be passed on the way by his own truck which he was supposed to lead. Charley was driving the three strong horses that belonged to the apparatus47, and Bruce held the reins over a sturdy black that had been recently added to the quarters for the chief’s special use. In an instant he had grasped the whip from its socket48, and brought it down on the broad, snowflaked back in front of him, causing the animal to bound forward at a slightly increased gait, but not fast enough to prevent Charles Weyman’s team from creeping slowly up to him. Again he swung his whip, and they raced along, the boy driving with so much vigor49 and skill that he soon forged ahead, and took a lead of fully twenty yards, which he maintained until they reached the scene of the disaster. Then he pulled up. The chief leaped to the ground, and just then the truck thundered along with the captain standing50 on the turntable close to the driver into whose ears he had been shouting his orders.
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1
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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pedestrians
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| n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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4
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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5
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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6
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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8
vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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9
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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10
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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11
vigilant
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| adj.警觉的，警戒的，警惕的 | |
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12
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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13
slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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14
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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16
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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17
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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19
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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pelting
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| 微不足道的，无价值的，盛怒的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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23
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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24
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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26
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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27
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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28
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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29
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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30
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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31
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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32
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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33
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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34
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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35
hitching
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| 搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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36
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37
woolen
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| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
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38
mittens
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| 不分指手套 | |
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39
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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40
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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41
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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42
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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43
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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44
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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45
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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46
intersection
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| n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集 | |
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47
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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48
socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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49
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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50
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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