Somebody called out in self-consolation:  “It was a harmless flash; though it struck, nothing caught fire.”  Somebody else thought that the flame might still break out.  A third became angry; he took this suggestion as a wish that the flame might break out.  He had been comforted by the first thought; he had to avenge himself for the uneasiness which the suggestion created in his mind.  Trembling with cold and anxiety, many stared up stupidly with blinded eyes into space and knew not even why.  A hundred voices explained what misfortune would befall the town, must befall it, if the lightning had really struck and the tower had caught fire.  Some told of the nature of slate, how it melts in fire and is carried as slack through the air, often setting fire to a whole city at the same time.  Others lamented that the storm would further a possible fire, and that there would be no water with which to extinguish it.  Still others said that if there were any water it would freeze in the engines and be of no avail.  Most of them depicted with fearful eloquence the course that the fire would take.  If the burning truss should fall the storm would blow it right where there was a thick cluster of houses, quite near the tower.  This was the most dangerous place in the whole town in case of fire, for there were numberless frame verandas in narrow courts, boarded gable roofs and shingle-covered sheds, all crowded so closely together that it would be impossible for a fire-engine to be squeezed in among them or for the firemen to get at their work.  If the burning truss should fall on this side, as it most certainly would, the entire portion of the town that lay before the wind would be irretrievably lost.  These reflections reduced the timid to such a state of mind that every new flash seemed to them the inevitable fire.  That nobody could see more than one side of the tower at a time tended to increase the misapprehension.  It was curious, but from all sides the cry was heard:  “Where?  Where?” Storm and thunder prevented mutual understanding.  Everybody wanted to see for himself.  Wild excitement prevailed.

“Where did it strike?” asked Apollonius, who had just arrived.  “On the side toward Brambach,” answered many voices.  Apollonius pushed his way through the crowd.  With long strides he hastened toward the tower steps.  He had come considerably in advance of his more deliberate associates.  In the tower his questions were to no purpose.  The people in the tower thought that though the lightning had struck it had not set fire to anything; still they were on the point of gathering together their best things to flee from the danger.  Only the journeyman, whom he found occupied at the stove, remained self-possessed.  Apollonius hastened with lanterns to the truss, to hang them there.  The ladder steps did not tremble beneath his feet; he was in too great haste to notice it.  There seemed to be no trace of incipient fire in the truss.  Neither the odor of sulphur, which denotes fire by lightning,