Berenice found herself supported by a couple of men, and it became clear to her in an instant that she had just been lifted from that pit below where she could see the glint of flame and the blinding smother of smoke, and from which came such heartrending cries that she instinctively tried to cover her ears. In the movement she realized that beside the hold which her rescuers had of her, she was grasped by other arms; that she was in the embrace of a man apparently dead. In the dim light her dazed sense did not recognize him, and she struggled to release herself from the hold of this corpse.
"Take him away from me!" she shrieked hysterically in mingled terror and repulsion.
"Gently, gently," said one of the men who held her. "He's got killed tryin' to save yer."
"If this cut in his arm was in your back," remarked the other, who was unlocking the hands so strongly clasped behind her, "it'd 'a' been a finisher."
Her head reeled, and she nearly swooned again; but somehow she found herself released, and passed down from the car into the arms of more men.
"For God's sake, hurry," one of them said. "It's getting too hot to stand here."
A blistering puff of smoke enwrapped her as she went down. She saw a face blackened and ghastly advance in the flaring light of a lantern. Hands that seemed to come out of a cloud and a great darkness helped and sustained her, until she was out of the instant press beside the burning car. When once she was free and stood upon her feet, she regained something like self-possession. Her head swam, but she realized the situation and felt that she was able to help herself.
"I am not hurt," she said to those who would have assisted her. "Don't mind me."
As she spoke, the body of a man was passed out of the smoke close to her, and she saw that it was Wynne. Instantly she remembered being flung into his arms, although what followed she could not recall. She looked at him now with a piercing conviction that he was dead. His cassock hung about him in rags, his face was smeared with blood and grime, his arm hung limp and bleeding. The words of the rescuer on the car-roof came to her, and she saw in the disfigured form of the young deacon the body of the man who had given his life for hers. Instantly all her powers rallied to help and if possible to save him.