We were in the midst of a roaring conflagration!

I bolted upright and leapt from the bed. Waving for me to follow, Crockett raced to the doorway of the bedchamber, calling over his shoulder: “Hump it, Poe, or we’ll be fried to a cinder!”

Eyes tearing, throat burning, I dashed from the room on Crockett’s heels and followed him down the long, smoke-filled corridor—only to find, as we approached the landing, that our escape was obstructed by a wavering column of flame that was marching inexorably up the stairwell. Quickly glancing about him, Crockett spotted the closed door of what appeared to be another bedchamber a few feet from where we stood. Leaping to the door, he twisted the knob—then ejaculated a curse.

“Locked!” he cried. Taking one step backwards, he raised his right boot to the door, and—with a single, mighty kick—sent it crashing inward on its hinges. Disappearing inside, he re-emerged a moment later with a bedsheet in his hands.

“It’s shinny down or die, Poe,” said he, looking at me with a savage grin as he tied one corner of the bedsheet to the carved, wooden balustrade and tossed the rest over the side. Clambering over the railing, he gathered the sheet between his hands—forming it into a kind of rope or cable—then slid down this makeshift liƒe-line until he reached its bottommost extent, whereupon he dropped the remaining distance to the floor and landed nimbly on his feet.

“C’mon, Poe!” he called to me from below, cupping his hands to his mouth so as to be heard above the roar of the inferno. “There ain’t nothin to it!”

Fear driving the blood in torrents upon my heart, I repeated the exact procedure I had seen Crockett perform so successfully. Bestraddling the railing, I clutched the sheet with sweat-soaked hands, then half climbed, half slid down the length of the linen. For a moment, I dangled in mid-air, my feet waving wildly. Then—closing my eyes and muttering a silent prayer—I released my hold on the linen and plummeted downward. My feet hit the floor with a thud—I bounced once—and ended up prostrate on my stomach, slightly stunned though otherwise unhurt. Almost instantly, a powerful hand reached down, clutched me by one arm, and yanked me to my feet.

“No time for dilly-dallyin’, Poe. This way!”

So sharp, so suffocatingly dense was the smoke—so fierce and searing the heat—that it was all I could do to keep pace with the frontiersman as he swiftly made his way through the blazing passageways of the house. Choking, coughing, half-blinded by the rivulets of perspiration that streamed from my forehead and into my eyes, I stumbled along at his heels, while, all around us, the conflagration raged in unmitigated fury.