“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.

“Hold thee blazing tongues!” she cried in fury.  “D’ee warnt to shake un from his perch?”

She turned to the foremost group of men.

“A couple o’ long scaffold poles fro’ yonder!” she cried hurriedly, “and twenty fathom o’ rope!”

Her quick eyes and intelligence had found what she wanted in a builder’s yard no great distance away.

“Follow, a dozen o’ you!” she cried; and sped off in the direction she had indicated.

Just twelve men, and no more, obeyed her.  She was mistress of the situation, and the crowd felt it.  They made room for the dominant intellect, and awaited developments, watching, in suppressed excitement and trepidation, the figure—­whom exhaustion was slowly mastering—­high up above them.

Suddenly a sort of huge L-shaped structure moved down the street, until it stood opposite the ruined house.  Then, twisting and rearing itself aloft, it took to itself the form of a lofty, slender gallows.