fall it would be they who fell.  The people on the firm ground held convulsively to their own hands, to their canes, to their clothes, that they might not fall from the terrible height.  They stood secure, and yet at the same time they hung over the abyss of death, for years, for a lifetime; the past had never been; and yet they had only been hanging on high for a moment.  They forgot the peril to the town and their own, in the peril of the man above them whose peril was their own.  They saw that the fire was quenched, the danger to the town was over; they knew it as in a dream when one knows that he dreams; it was a mere thought without a living meaning.  Only when the man had climbed down the ladder, had disappeared into the door and drawn the ladder after him, only when the people no longer clung to their own hands, canes, and clothes, only then did admiration battle with anxiety, only then did the exultant cry:  “Hurrah!  Brave fellow!” become smothered in the lament:  “He is lost!” A trembling old voice began to sing:  “Now thank we all our God!” When the aged man came to the line:  “Who has protected us,” a great consciousness seemed to sweep over the people of what might have been lost and what had been rescued for them.  Absolute strangers fell into one another’s arms, each embraced in his neighbor the loved ones whom he might have lost and who had been saved.  All united in the singing of the hymn; the sounds of thanksgiving swelled through the whole town, soared over the streets and squares where the people stood who had feared to go closer, entered the houses, penetrated into the innermost chambers, rose to the remotest garrets.  The sick man in his lonely bed, the old man in the chair where weakness had bound him, little children who did not know the meaning of the hymn or of the danger that had been averted, all joined in the song of praise.  The town was one great church, and storm and thunder the giant organ.  Again the cry was heard:  “Nettenmair!  Where is Nettenmair?  Where is our helper?  Where is our rescuer?  Where is the brave fellow?  Where is the noble man?” Wind and storm were forgotten.  Everybody pushed forward, looking for the man who was being called on all sides.  The tower of St. George’s was besieged.  The carpenter appeared, saying that Nettenmair had lain down in the watchman’s room to rest for a few moments.  The carpenter was beset with questions.  Had he been injured at all?  Would his health suffer?  The carpenter could tell nothing except that Nettenmair had done more than a man is capable of doing in the ordinary course of events.  In such supreme moments man is a different being; later he marvels himself at the power he displayed.  But everything must be paid for.  It would not surprise the carpenter if, after the tremendous exertion, Nettenmair should sleep for three days and nights at a stretch.  The people seemed prepared to wait on the steps for that length of time, in order to see the brave man as soon as he waked.  In the