The Savannah morning news., 1903-08-16
CHAPTER Y
NERO NOT THE LAST VIOLINIST
OF HIS KIND.


OF HIS KIND.
Miss Carewe was at her desk writing
to Sister Cecilia, whom she most loved
of all the world, when the bells start
led her with their sudden clangor. The
quill dropped from her hand, she start
ed to her feet, wide-eyed, not under
standing; while the whole town,
browsing peacefully a moment ago, re-
sounded Immediately with a loud con-
fusion. She ran to the front door and
looked out, her heart beating wildly.
The western sky was touched with
a soft rose color, which quickly became
warm glow, fiuctuated, and, in the
instant, shot up like the coming of a
full Aurora. Then through the broken
foliage of the tree tops could be seen
the orange curis of flames, three-quar-
ters of a mile away though they were.
People, calling loudly that 'ft was
Carewe's warehouses; were running
down the street. From the stable, old
Nelson, on her fathers best horse,
came galloping, and seeing the white
figure in the doorway, cried out in a
quavering voice, without checking his
steed:
81 goin' tell 20. pa. Miss Betty; he in
de kentry on Ian business. Go back in
de house, Missey!"
The other servants, like ragged
sketches in the night fitted by, with
excited CALCULATIONS, to join the run
ners, and Miss Betty followed them
across the dew strewn turf in her light
slippers, but at the gate she stopped.
From up the street came the sound
of a bell smaller than those of the
churches and Court House, yet one that
outdid all others in the madness of it's
appeal to clear the way. 1t was borne
along by what seemed at first an in
definite black mass, but which-as the
Aurora grew keener, producing even
here faint, yellow twilight-resolved
itself into a mob of hoarSe- shouting
men and boys, who were running and
Juggling at ropes, which drew along
three extraordinary vehicles. They
came rapidly down the street and pass
ed Miss Betty, with a hubbub and din
beyond all understanding; one line of
men, most of them in red shirts and
oil cloth helmets, at a dead run with
the hose cart; a second line with the
hand engine; the third dragging the
ladder wagon. One man was riding, a
tall, straight gentleman in evening
clothes and without "a hat, who stood
precariously in the hose cart, calling
in an annoyed tone through a brazen
trumpet. Miss Betty recognized him at
once; it was he who caught her kit
ten; and she thought that if she had
been Fanchon Bareaud, she must have
screamed a warning, for his balance
appeared a thing of mere luck, and, if
he fell, he would be trampled under
foot and probably run over by the en-
CINE. But, happily (she remembered),
she was not Fanchon Bareaud.
Before behind, and beside the de-
partment, raced a throng of boys, wild
with the joy experienced by their
species when property is being hand
somely destroyed; after them came
painting women, holding their sides and
gasping with the effort to keep up with
the flying procession.
Miss Betty trembled, for she had
never seen the like in her life: she
stood close to the hedge, and let them
go by: then she turned in after them
and ran like a fleet young deer. She
was going to the fire.
over all the uproar could be heard
the angry voice through the trumpet,
calling the turns of the streets to the
men in the van, upbraiding them ana
those of the other two companies i'm
partially; and few of his hearers de-
MED the chief his right to express some
.l,o r.