The Lost House Part 8

Ford gave a cry of delight.

"They're taking flash-light photographs," he cried jubilantly. "Well done, you Pressmen!" The instinct of the reporter became compelling.

"If they're alive to develop those photographs to-night," he exclaimed eagerly, "Cuthbert will send them by special messenger, in time to catch the MAURETANIA and the REPUBLIC will have them by Sunday. I mayn't be alive to see them," he added regretfully, "but what a feature for the Sunday supplement!"

As the eyes of the two prisoners became accustomed to the darkness, they saw that the street was not, as at first they had supposed, entirely empty. Directly below them in the gutter, where to approach it was to invite instant death from Prothero's pistol, lay the dead body of a policeman, and at the nearer end of the street, not fifty yards from them, were three other prostrate forms. But these forms were animate, and alive to good purpose. From a public-house on the corner a row of yellow lamps showed them clearly. Stretched on pieces of board, and mats commandeered from hallways and cabs, each of the three men lay at full length, nursing a rifle. Their belted gray overcoats, flat, visored caps, and the set of their shoulders marked them for soldiers.

"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Ford incredulously, "they've called out the Guards!"

As unconcernedly as though facing the b.u.t.ts at a rifle-range, the three sharp-shooters were firing point-blank at the windows from which Prothero and Pearsall were waging their war to the death upon the instruments of law and order. Beside them, on his knees in the snow, a young man with the silver hilt of an officer's sword showing through the slit in his greatcoat, was giving commands; and at the other end of the street, a brother officer in evening dress was directing other sharp-shooters, bending over them like the coach of a tug-of-war team, pointing with white-gloved fingers. On the side of the street from which Prothero was firing, huddled in a doorway, were a group of officials, inspectors of police, fire chiefs in bra.s.s helmets, more officers of the Guards in bear-skins, and, wrapped in a fur coat, the youthful Horne Secretary. Ford saw him wave his arm, and at his bidding the cordon of police broke, and slowly forcing its way through the ma.s.s of people came a huge touring-car, its two blazing eyes sending before it great shafts of light. The driver of the car wasted no time in taking up his position. Dashing half-way down the street, he as swiftly backed the automobile over the gutter and up on the sidewalk, so that the lights in front fell full on the door of No. 40. Then, covered by the fire from the roofs, he sprang to the lamps and tilted them until they threw their shafts into the windows of the third story. Prothero's hiding-place was now as clearly exposed as though it were held in the circle of a spot-light, and at the success of the maneuver the great mob raised an applauding cheer. But the triumph was brief. In a minute the blazing lamps had been shattered by bullets, and once more, save for the fierce flashes from rifles and pistols, Sowell Street lay in darkness.

Ford drew Miss Dale back into the room.

"Those men below," he said, "are mad. Prothero's always been mad, and your Pearsall is mad with drugs. And the sight of blood has made them maniacs. They know they now have no chance to live. There's no fear or hope to hold them, and one life more or less means nothing. If they should return here----"

He hesitated, but the girl nodded quickly. "I understand," she said.

"I'm going to try to break down the door and get to the roof," explained Ford. "My hope is that this attack will keep them from hearing, and----"

"No," protested the girl. "They will hear you, and they will kill you."

"They may take it into their crazy heads to do that, anyway," protested Ford, "so the sooner I get you away, the better. I've only to smash the panels close to the bolts, put my arm through the hole, and draw the bolts back. Then, another blow on the spring lock when the firing is loudest, and we are in the hall. Should anything happen to me, you must know how to make your escape alone. Across the hall is a door leading to an iron ladder. That ladder leads to a trap-door. The trap-door is open.

When you reach the roof, run westward toward a lighted building."

"I am not going without you," said Miss Dale quietly; "not after what you have done for me."

"I haven't done anything for you yet," objected Ford. "But in case I get caught I mean to make sure there will be others on hand who will."

He pulled his pencil and a letter from his pocket, and on the back of the envelope wrote rapidly: "I will try to get Miss Dale up through the trap in the roof. You can reach the roof by means of the apartment house in Devonshire Street. Send men to meet her."

In the groups of officials half hidden in the doorway farther down the street, he could make out the bandaged head of Cuthbert. "Cuthbert!" he called. Weighting the envelope with a coin, he threw it into the air. It fell in the gutter, under a lamp-post, and full in view, and at once the two madmen below splashed the street around it with bullets. But, indifferent to the bullets, a policeman sprang from a dark areaway and flung himself upon it. The next moment he staggered. Then limping, but holding himself erect, he ran heavily toward the group of officials. The Home Secretary s.n.a.t.c.hed the envelope from him, and held it toward the light.

In his desire to learn if his message had reached those on the outside, Ford leaned far over the sill of the window. His imprudence was all but fatal. From the roof opposite there came a sudden yell of warning, from directly below him a flash, and a bullet grazed his forehead and shattered the window-pane above him. He was deluged with a shower of broken gla.s.s. Stunned and bleeding, he sprang back.

With a cry of concern, Miss Dale ran toward him.

"It's nothing!" stammered Ford. "It only means I must waste no more time." He balanced his iron rod as he would a pikestaff, and aimed it at the upper half of the door to the hall.

"When the next volley comes," he said, "I'll smash the panel."

With the bar raised high, his muscles on a strain, he stood alert and poised, waiting for a shot from the room below to call forth an answering volley from the house-tops. But no sound came from below. And the sharp-shooters, waiting for the madmen to expose themselves, held their fire.

Ford's muscles relaxed, and he lowered his weapon. He turned his eyes inquiringly to the girl. "What's THIS mean?" he demanded. Unconsciously his voice had again dropped to a whisper.

"They're short of ammunition," said the girl, in a tone as low as his own; "or they are coming HERE."

With a peremptory gesture, Ford waved her toward the room adjoining and then ran to the window.

The girl was leaning forward with her face close to the door. She held the finger of one hand to her lips. With the other hand she beckoned.

Ford ran to her side.

"Some one is moving in the hall," she whispered. "Perhaps they are escaping by the roof? No," she corrected herself. "They seem to be running down the stairs again. Now they are coming back. Do you hear?"

she asked. "It sounds like some one running up and down the stairs. What can it mean?"

From the direction of the staircase Ford heard a curious creaking sound as of many light footsteps. He gave a cry of relief.

"The police!" he shouted jubilantly. "They've entered through the roof, and they're going to attack in the rear. You're SAFE!" he cried.

He sprang away from the door and, with two swinging blows, smashed the broad panel. And then, with a cry, he staggered backward. Full in his face, through the break he had made, swept a hot wave of burning cinders. Through the broken panel he saw the hall choked with smoke, the steps of the staircase and the stair-rails wrapped in flame.

"The house is on fire!" he cried. "They've taken to the roof and set fire to the stairs behind them!" With the full strength of his arms and shoulders he struck and smashed the iron bar against the door. But the bolts held, and through each fresh opening he made in the panels the burning cinders, drawn by the draft from the windows, swept into the room. From the street a mighty yell of consternation told them the fire had been discovered. Miss Dale ran to the window, and the yell turned to a great cry of warning. The air was rent with frantic voices. "Jump!"

cried some. "Go back!" entreated others. The fire chief ran into the street directly below her and shouted at her through his hands. "Wait for the life-net!" he commanded. "Wait for the ladders!"

"Ladders!" panted Ford. "Before they can get their engines through that mob----"

Through the jagged opening in the door he thrust his arm and jerked free the upper bolt. An instant later he had kicked the lower panel into splinters and withdrawn the second bolt, and at last, under the savage onslaught of his iron bar, the spring lock flew apart. The hall lay open before him. On one side of it the burning staircase was a well of flame; at his feet, the matting on the floor was burning fiercely. He raced into the bedroom and returned instantly, carrying a blanket and a towel dripping with water. He pressed the towel across the girl's mouth and nostrils. "Hold it there!" he commanded. Blinded by the bandage, Miss Dale could see nothing, but she felt herself suddenly wrapped in the blanket and then lifted high in Ford's arms. She gave a cry of protest, but the next instant he was running with her swiftly while the flames from the stair-well scorched her hair. She was suddenly tumbled to her feet, the towel and blanket s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and she saw Ford hanging from an iron ladder holding out his hand. She clasped it, and he drew her after him, the flames and cinders pursuing and s.n.a.t.c.hing hungrily.

But an instant later the cold night air smote her in the face, from hundreds of hoa.r.s.e throats a yell of welcome greeted her, and she found herself on the roof, dazed and breathless, and free.

At the same moment the lifting fire-ladder reached the sill of the third-story window, and a fireman, shielding his face from the flames, peered into the blazing room. What he saw showed him there were no lives to rescue. Stretched on the floor, with their clothing in cinders and the flames licking at the flesh, were the bodies of the two murderers.

A bullet-hole in the forehead of each showed that self-destruction and cremation had seemed a better choice than the gallows and a grave of quick-lime.

On the roof above, two young people stood breathing heavily and happily, staring incredulously into each other's eyes. Running toward them across the roofs, stumbling and falling, were many blue-coated, helmeted angels of peace and law and order.

"How can I tell you?" whispered the girl quickly. "How can I ever thank you? And I was angry," she exclaimed, with self-reproach. "I did not understand you." She gave a little sigh of content. "Now I think I do."

He took her hand, and she did not seem to know that he held it.

"And," she cried, in wonder, "I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME!"

The young man seemed to have lost his confidence. For a moment he was silent. "The name's all right!" he said finally. His voice was still a little shaken, a little tremulous. "I only hope you'll like it. It's got to last you a long time!"