"It would appear," said I, meditatively, "that, in consideration of our being on the fifth floor, with the lift-shaft drawing splendidly, and the stairs winding about it,--except the two lower flights, which have just fallen in,--and in consideration of the fire department's probable incompetence to extinguish anything more formidable than a tar-barrel, --yes, it would appear, I think, that we might go further than 'dangerous' and find a less appropriate adjective to describe the situation."
"You mean we cannot get down?" The beautiful voice was tremulous.
"Well, then," she suggested, cheerfully, after due reflection, "since we can't go down, why not go up?"
As a matter of fact, nothing could be more simple. We were on the top floor of the hotel, and beside us, in the niche corresponding to the stairs below, was an iron ladder that led to a neatly-whitewashed trapdoor in the roof. Adopting her suggestion, I pushed against this trap-door and found that it yielded readily; then, standing at the top of the ladder, I looked about me on a dim expanse of tiles and chimneys; yet farther off were the huddled roofs and gables of Liége, and just a stray glimpse of the Meuse; and above me brooded a clear sky and the naked glory of the moon.
I lowered my head with a distinct sigh of relief.
"I say," I called, "it is infinitely nicer up here--superb view of the city, and within a minute's drop of the square! Better come up."
"Go first," said she; and subsequently I held for a moment a very slender hand--a ridiculously small hand for a woman whose eyes were almost on a level with my shoulder,--and we two stood together on the roof of the Hôtel Continental. We enjoyed, as I had predicted, an unobstructed view of Liége and of the square, wherein two toy-like engines puffed viciously and threw impotent threads of water against the burning hotel beneath us, and, at times, on the heads of an excited throng erratically clad.
But I looked down moodily, "That," said I, as a series of small explosions popped like pistol shots, "is the café; and, oh, Lord! there goes the only decent Scotch in all Liége!"
"There is Mamma!" she cried, excitedly; "there!" She pointed to a stout woman, who, with a purple? shawl wrapped about her head, was wringing her hands as heartily as a bird-cage, held in one of them, would permit. "And she has saved Bill Bryan!"