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Some one suggested a ladder, and in a moment there was an aimless scurrying and turning amongst the women.

“Why don’t ‘ee stir theeself and hunt for un, Jarge?” panted one that stood near me, twisting hysterically upon a slow youth at her side.

“Shut up, ‘Liza!” he answered gruffly; then, with a sort of indrawn gasp–“Look art the wall, lass–look art the wall!”

It was obvious to the least knowing what he meant. To lean so much as a broomstick, it seemed, against that tottering ruin would infallibly complete its destruction.

One foot of the clinging figure high up was seen to move slightly, and a little bomb of mortar span out into the air and burst into dust on a projecting brick. A long shrill sigh broke from the crowd.

Then the male wiseheads came together, and, desperate to snap the chord of impotent suspense, mooted and rejected plan after plan that their sane judgment knew from the first to be impracticable.

At the outset it was plainly impossible for a soul to approach the ruins. Apart from the almost certain mangling such a venture would entail upon the explorer, the least stirring or shifting of the great heap of rubbish flung about the base of the wall would certainly risk the immediate collapse of the latter.

Success, it was evident, must come, if at all, from a distance–but how?

One suggested slinging a rope from window to window of adjacent houses across the path of the broken chimney-stack–a good method of rescue had circumstances lent themselves to it. They did not. On the ruin side a wide space intervened; on the other, the sister house to that which had fallen, and which was also included in the order of demolition, was itself affected by the loss of its support, and leaned in a sinister manner, its party walls bulged and rent towards the scene of devastation.

Nothing short of the great Roc itself could, it seemed, snatch the poor fellow from his death perch.

There came suddenly an ominous silence. Then strode out in front of his fellows–and he moved so close to the ruin that the women whimpered and held one another–an old, rough-bearded chap in stained corduroy.

“Whart’s he gone to do?” gasped the sibilant voices.

He hollowed his hands to his mouth, he cleared his hoarse throat two or three times. Only a little trailing screech came from it at first. Then he cursed his weakness, and pulled himself together.

“Jark! Jark Curtus!” he hailed, in an explosive voice.

“Hullo!”

The weak, small response floated down.

“My lard! my poor lard! we’ve thought oor best, arnd we can do nothun fower ‘ee.”

Instantly a shrill protest of horror went up from the women. This was not what they had expected.

“What! leave the mis’rable boy to his fate!”

There followed a storm of hisses from them–absolutely unreasonable, of course. The old fellow turned to retire, with hanging head.

At the moment a girl, flushed, blowzed, breathless, broke through the skirt of the mob and barred his retreat.

“Oh!” she panted, shaking her jet-black noddle at him–“here’s a parcel o’ gor-crows for discussin’ help to a Christian marn! What! a score o’ wiselings, and not one to hit oot the means and the way?”

She had only just heard, and had run a mile to the rescue of her old lad.

The women caught her enthusiasm, and jeered and cheered formlessly, as their manner is; for each desired for her own voice a separate recognition.

Jenny pushed rudely past the abashed gaffer. She was hatless, and her hair had tumbled abroad. She raised her face, with the eyes shining.

“Jack!” she cried, in a shrill voice–“Jack!”

The little weak response wailed down again.

“Jenny! I’m anigh done.”

“Hold on a bit longer, Jack!” she screamed. “Don’t move till I tell ‘ee. I’m agone to save thee, Jack!”

Again from the women a rapturous cry broke out. What incompetent noodles appeared their masters in juxtaposition with this fearless, defiant creature.

The man up aloft seemed to shiver in the shock of the outcry; and once more some fragments of mortar rolled from under his feet and bounded into the depths. The girl rounded upon the voicers.