It was rather a thrilling moment when we stood on that burning building
waiting for the blankets to come into which we were to jump. Now that I
look back at it I think we must have been a funny sight, for while we
stood there we threw on our jackets over our night-dresses and held the
rest of our belongings in our hands. With all the rest of her
impedimenta Nyoda had rescued her camera, Nakwisi her spy-glass and I
my note-book, and they gave us an odd, jaunty tourist appearance which
must have been amusing. Well, the people came running with blankets and
held them for us to jump and we jumped, although we had to throw
Margery down. She stood there trembling, afraid to jump and there was
no time to argue the necessity of prompt action. We gathered up our
possessions from the people to whom we had tossed them and hastened
into a near-by house where we got ourselves dressed.

Our rescuer had jumped right after us, and by the time we had picked
ourselves up and got our breath back enough to thank him he had
vanished from the scene. He must have been the proprietor, we judged,
for he knew the inside of the hotel so well. Possibly he went back to
rescue some more of his patrons.

After we were dressed we returned to the scene of the fire, which had
drawn people from all the country around, in the usual half-dressed
state in which people go to midnight fires. Of course, there was no
hope of saving the building, for the few thin streams of water that
were playing on it went up in steam as soon as they touched the blaze.
The walls fell in with terrifying crashes and the roof caved in like a
pasteboard box. It had been nothing but a dry shell of a building and
burned like tinder.