Two Knapsacks Part 41

The detective came back to the front of the house, and saw the fire that had broken forth in a moment, and was flaming in every room of bas.e.m.e.nt and upper storey, a fire too rapidly advanced to be got under, even had the means been at hand.

"Quick, Sylva.n.u.s, Timotheus, get out the horses and any other live stock," he cried; but the lawyer had been before him, and the two Pilgrims and he were already leading the frightened animals past the house and on to the road, where they turned their heads outward and drove them along. Forgetting their watch, Mr. Terry and Bangs himself helped, until every living creature, as they thought, was safely away on the road to the Lake Settlement. Then, two figures, that the guilty Sylva.n.u.s knew, came out of the door of the boarding house, and the flames leaped out after them. The woman came up to Coristine, and said: "I know you; you helped to carry poor Steevy, who is not awake yet. He said it was cold down there, so Monty and I have made a fire to keep him warm." The lawyer thought she meant that her dead brother was cold. As to the fire, when he saw Monty, it did not astonish him; but how came they both there through the guard?

The frame buildings, their light clapboards dried by the summer sun, burned furiously, and the flames roared in the rising wind. The sheds and stables caught; the fire ran over the ground, in spite of the dew, catching in shrubs and fallen timber, and even climbing up living trees.

Back the beholders were driven, as far as Bill Richards' post, by the terrible glare and heat of the conflagration. Leaving Bigglethorpe on sentry, and Rufus over the prisoner, Harry came running up to learn what was the matter, and to tell of noises like human voices and hammer blows behind the slab of rock. Then, as the fire in the house burned down to the ground, there was an explosion that seemed to shake the earth, and a column of fire sprang up the standing chimney, side by side with another less lofty and more diffused from the right of the building. Report after report followed, and the whole party, half terror-stricken, descended to the beach. Rufus, with Bigglethorpe's help, had considerately transferred his prisoner to the punt, and guarded him there. The store-keeper, taking chisel and mallet in hand, was striking off chip after chip of rock, in answer to m.u.f.fled cries from within; and now the big rock had moved half an inch. Still the brave man worked away amid the continued explosions, and in spite of the advancing fire. The block continued to slide, and Bigglethorpe cried: "Take the boats out of the way, and get back from me, or you will all be crushed in a minute."

The punt was out of danger, but Bill Richards, with a single movement, shoved off the skiff, and, kneeling on her stern, sent her far out into the lake. Then he rowed the boat rapidly back into a place of safety.

The slab was still sliding, and had cleared the rock out of which it had been cut by an inch. A human hand was thrust out, a dumpy, beringed hand, bleeding with the effort; a most audible voice cried "For G.o.d's sake, 'urry!" and then there came a perfect Babel of explosions, and the gallant deliverer was forcibly drawn out of a fierce river of liquid fire that streamed down into the lake, and burned even out on the water.

The fisherman was badly burnt, hair, beard and eyelashes almost singed off; but still he thought of rescue. "Fire at that miserable little chip that holds it," he cried; "fire, since you can't hit it otherwise. Oh, for an asbestos suit, and I would have styed." They fired pistol and gun with no effect, till the lawyer, out in the skiff with Bill, got his rifle sighted to the point in the blue flame, where he thought the preventing ridge ought to be. He fired at close range, the ball hit the rock projection, and at once the great block slid away into the lake, with a splash that damped the flames with a column of spray, and revealed an awful corridor of fire. No living creature was there, but the detective, dipping his feet in the lake, took a boat hook out of the returning skiff, and then, standing in the flames, hauled out two charred ma.s.ses, and extinguished them in the shallow water by the sh.o.r.e.

Mr. Terry came running down and crying: "Out on the wather wid yeez, ivery mother's son av yeez; the foire's spreadin' an' the threes is fallin'; fer yer loife, min." Mr. Bangs, still in command, asked:--

"How many will the skiff howld, Bill?"

"Seven, anyway," replied the Richards of that name.

"Mr. Coristine and Mr. Terry take commend and choose crew."

"Come, Matilda and Monty," said the lawyer.

"Come on, Sylva.n.u.s, Timotheus, Rufus," cried Mr. Terry.

"I'll row," said the Irishman.

"And me, too," added Sylva.n.u.s.

"Look after my prisoner, Mr. Bangs," cried Rufus; and the skiff went out to sea.

Bill transferred himself to the scow, with his brother Harry and Mr.

Bigglethorpe. The detective lifted the two charred ma.s.ses to the opposite side of the middle thwart from that against which the prisoner lay. Then, Bill and Bigglethorpe having taken the bow, he and Harry took the stern, and the scow followed the skiff. For a time the two boats stood stock still, fascinated by the awful scene. The explosions were over, but the forest was blazing fiercely, and up towards the smouldering buildings, but underground, blazed a vault of blue fire that reached up to the standing brick chimney of Rawdon's house. Hundreds of animals were in the water around them, squirrels and snakes and muskrats, even mice, swimming for dear life. Then, pitter, patter, came the rain, hissing on the flames. It fell more heavily; and the lawyer, having doffed his coat to row, threw it over the woman's shoulders, while Mr. Terry put that of Sylva.n.u.s about the boy. "Lead on, Mr.

Coristine," cried the detective; and the skiff shot through the narrows, with the punt hard after it. The rain fell in torrents and drenched the occupants of both vessels; but those whose faces were towards the stern could see the bush-fire still raging. "The rain'll stop it spreadin',"

Bill called out cheerfully, and the lawyer rejoiced, because the fire was on Miss Du Plessis' land. Long was the journey, tired were the rowers and paddlers, and draggled was the crew, or rather draggled were the crews, that reached the Richards' homestead. The prisoner was awake by this time, had been so all along since he was deposited in the punt, and a paddle had splashed his face. When walked ash.o.r.e, he had made a dash for liberty, but Mr. Bangs had brought him up short. "Yore in too great a herry, Merk Devis," he had said; "we went you, my men, and we'll hev you, dead or alive." So Mark Davis, since that was the name of Wilkinson's dissipated farmer, had to fall into line and march to the Richards' place. There the party found Maguffin and the constable.

The colonel's servant had been much closer to the conflagration, but, having seen no sign of any person there, nothing but a number of startled horses, and the fire having taken possession of the sides of the masked road, he had retired to the nearest house. He at once enquired after the safety of Mr. Terry and the lawyer, and, finding that they and all the rest of the party were safe, rode back at his utmost speed to report. The constable, rejoiced at seeing his prisoners again, was about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylva.n.u.s interposed, the latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner's "old putrified jints" if he touched the boy. The Crew meant petrified, but the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the mistake. As a private individual in the Squire's kitchen, Mr. Rigby was disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with big-boned Sylva.n.u.s, but, as a constable on duty, he was prepared to face any number of law-breakers and to fight them to the death. Drawing his baton, he advanced, and only the commands of his legal superior, Mr.

Bangs, backed by the expostulations of the pseudo sergeant-major Terry, induced him to refrain from recapturing his former prisoners, and from adding to them the profane Pilgrim who had been guilty of interfering with an officer in the discharge of his duty. Finally he was mollified by being put in possession of a really great criminal, Mark Davis, whom he at once searched and deprived of various articles, including a revolver, all the chambers of which were fortunately empty. Then, producing his own revolver, the corporal gave it to his prisoner to smell, remarking that, if he tried any nonsense, he would have a taste of it that he would remember. Mrs. Richards was busy reducing the inflammation of Mr. Bigglethorpe's burns. She insisted that he should go no farther that night, and the whole Richards family, which had greatly taken to the fisherman, combined to hold him an honoured prisoner. Mr.

Bigglethorpe consented to remain, and the Bridesdale contingent bade him and his hosts good night. The constable went first with his prisoner, followed by Matilda Nagle, between the lawyer and the detective. Monty came next, clinging to Sylva.n.u.s and Mr. Terry, while Timotheus and Rufus brought up the rear. Mrs. Richards had furnished the woman and her boy with two shiny waterproofs, called by the young Richards gum coats, so that Coristine and Sylva.n.u.s got back their contributions to the wardrobe of the insane, but, save for the look of the thing, they would have been better without them, since they only added a clammy burden to thoroughly water-soaked bodies.

Still the rain fell in torrents. It trickled in many rills off the penthouses of the pedestrians' headgear; from the lapels of coats and from waistcoats it streamed down, concentrating itself upon soggy knees.

Broad sheets, like the flow of a water-cart, radiated from coat tails of every description; and rivers descending trouser-legs, turned boots and shoes into lakes, which sodden stockinged feet pumped out in returning fountains. Happily there was no necessity for using gun or pistol, since these weapons shared in the general pervading moisture. Yet the corporal marched erect, with his left hand on his prisoner's shoulder. Poor Matilda was cheerful, though shivering, and, turning round to her boy, said; "It is a good thing, Monty, that we lit the fire when we did, for it would be very hard to light one now;" to which the lad answered, "I hain't a goin' to light no more fires no more." Sylva.n.u.s and the veteran had been telling him what a bad thing it was to set houses on fire, and the hypnotized boy, freed apparently from the mesmeric bond by the death of his unnatural father, responded to the counsels of his new friends.

The influence lasted longer with Matilda, for as, in spite of the absorbing rain, her companions were able to make a study of her talk, they observed that it was controlled by one or two overmastering ideas, which were evidently the imposition of a superior will. In his dog-Latin, which he presumed the poor woman could not understand, Mr.

Bangs said to the lawyer: "_Oportet dicere ad Doctorem dehypnotizere illem feminem._" To this elegant sentence Mr. Coristine briefly answered, "_Etiam_," but soon afterwards he asked: "Where did you pick up your Latin, Mr. Bangs."

"I wes at school, you know where, with pore Nesh; _mulier nescit nomen_. We both took to Letin, because we could talk without being understood by the common crowd. You find velgar criminals thet know some French, German, Sp.e.n.i.sh or Portegese, bet none thet know Letin. In dealing with higher cla.s.s criminals we used our own gibberish or artificial shibboleth."

"A sort of Volapuk?"

"Exectly; pore Nesh was ohfelly clever et it."

"I am going to kill Mr. Nash as soon as I can find him," interrupted the woman, in an amiable tone of voice, as if she proposed to discharge some pleasant duty.

The men shuddered, and Mr. Bangs said: "You know, my dear Matilda, what the Bible says, Thou shelt not kill. You surely would not kemmit the sin of merder?"

"I am not to mind what the Bible says, or what Steevy says, or what clergymen or any other people say. I am only to do what he says, and I must."

"Did he tell you to light thet fire?"

"Not that fire, but the other said it was cold down there."

"Why did he not come up?"

"Because I covered the trap over with the big stones, and Monty helped me."

"Surely he didn't tell you to dreg the stones on to the trep?"

"Yes, he did, but not then. It was before, when Flower wanted to get up, and crawl away and tell, because he thought he was going to die."

"Was Flower down there with him?"

"Yes; that's why Monty and I put the big stones on the trap."

"Flower was hert, wesn't he, shot in the beck, I think?"

"Yes; he crawled in all the way on his hands and knees, and I helped his wife to tie him up, till the doctor came, the morning that I found Steevy."

"How do you know thet Stephen wes esleep?"

"He told me."

"_Deminus Coristinus, mulier non est responsibilis pro suis ectionibus.

Facit et credit omnia qua mendet enimel mertuus._"

"_Eheu domine!_" replied the lawyer; "_sic est vita dolorosa!_"

Bridesdale was all lit up, and the front door was open to receive the soaked wayfarers, but no one could be induced to enter it. Mr. Terry asked Honoria to leave his dry suit and a pair of shoes at the kitchen, when he would take them to the carriage house, and change there. The lawyer and the detective had no dry suit, so Mrs. Carruthers brought them some of her husband's clothes, and two umbrellas, under which they carried their bundles, wrapped in bath towels, to the place the veteran had chosen. While the three drawing-room guests stripped, rubbed themselves down with the grateful towels, and put on their dry attire, the kitchen filled up with the humid and steaming Pilgrims, Rufus, the idiot boy, and his mother. Constable Rigby lodged his prisoner on some straw in an empty stall in the stable, and, producing a pair of handcuffs, which he had left there, secured him, fastening also a stall chain round one of his legs with a padlock. The constable was severe, but he had lost two prisoners the previous day, had been abused by Sylva.n.u.s Pilgrim, and was very wet and tired. To the credit of Sylva.n.u.s be it said, that he came out with Ben Toner's clothes, and lent them to his elderly rival, and actually carried the corporal's wet garments into the kitchens, there to hang with a large a.s.sortment of others, drying before the two stoves, in full blast for the purpose. The gum coats had fairly protected the clothes of Matilda and Monty, but their feet needed reclothing, and it took some time to dry their heads. Maguffin had taken off his wet things, and was asleep in the loft bed, keeping one ear open for the safekeeping of the colonel's horses. Tryphena and Tryphosa were both up; and into their hands Rufus consigned the dripping habiliments of their two admirers as well as his own, his fraternal relation allowing him to appear before the ladies of the kitchen in a long white garment with frills that had never been constructed for a man. "Guess it ain't the last time you'll have to dry them clothes, gals," said the sportive Rufus, skipping along in his frilled surplice, when Tryphena chased him out of the apartment with a sounding smack between the shoulders. Tryphena hesitated to send the mad woman into the room in which Serlizer was sleeping, not knowing the nature of their relations at the Select Encampment. Matilda, however, evidenced no intention of retiring, or feeling of drowsiness. She talked, with the brightness and cheerfulness of other days, and in a gentle, pleasant voice, but on strange wild themes that terrified the two young women. Monty looked at the fire and then at Tryphosa, saying: "I hain't a goin' to light no more fires no more." "Why?" asked Tryphosa, and the answer came, which revealed a genuine working of the intellect: "'Cos Sylvy says. .h.i.t's wicked." His mother turned, and said: "Monty, you must not mind what Sylva.n.u.s says or anybody else; you must mind what he says."

The boy looked his mother full in the face, and replied in a very decided tone, "Hi'm blowed hif I do!"

In the forepart of the house, only the ladies were up. The doctor and the colonel, the captain and the Squire, slept the sleep of tired men with good consciences, and the wounded dominie was enjoying a beautiful succession of rose-coloured dreams, culminating in a service, at which a tall soldierly man in appropriate costume gave away into his hand that of a very elegant and accomplished lady, saying, as he did so, "Can I do less for the heroic saver of her uncle's life?" Mr. Terry's appearance, on entering to salute his daughter, exacted no remark. The lawyer looked somewhat bucolic, but highly respectable. But poor little Mr. Bangs was buried in clothing, and tripped on his overflowing trowser legs, as he vainly strove to put his right hand outside of its coatsleeve, for the purpose of shaking hands with the company. Mrs. Carmichael took pity on him, and turned back his cuffs, and, his hands being thus of use to him, he employed them to do the same with the skirts of his trousers. The usually polite veteran took Coristine to a corner of the room, and, between violent coughs of suppressed laughter, said: "Och, Misther Coristine, it's the dumb aguey I'll be havin' iv his clawthes is not droied soon. It's Bangs by name he is and bangs by natur'. Shure, this bangs Banagher, an' Banagher bangs the world." The young ladies had not yet entered the apartment, and the three night-watchers were busy relating to the three matrons the terrible events of the night. The lawyer was sitting with his back to the door, conversing with Mrs.

Carruthers, when Miss Carmichael came tripping in, followed by Miss Du Plessis and Miss Halbert. The lawyer's hair was brown, and so was her uncle's. The coat was the Squire's, and the white collar above it. So she slipped softly up to the back of the chair, took the brown head between her hands, and administered a salute on the forehead, with the words: "Why, Uncle John!--," then suddenly turned and fled, amid the laughter of the veteran and his daughter, and the amused blushes and smiles of her mother. The other young ladies came forward and joined in the conversation, but Miss Carmichael did not show her face until the family was summoned for prayers. The colonel came down in his usual urbane smiling way, saying that he had taken the liberty of looking in upon his dear friend and prisoner, and was rejoiced to find that he had spent a good night. The captain could be heard descending the staircase, and telling somebody that he was becalmed again with a spell of foul weather. The somebody was the Squire, who insisted that thieves had been through his wardrobe, and then eagerly asked for news from the encampment. All were shocked beyond measure when they heard of the terrible tragedy. "I wished the man no good," said the Squire, with a regretful expression on his manly face, "but, if he had been ten times the deep dyed villain he was, I couldn't have dreamt of such an awful fate for him." The captain remarked that in the midst of life we are in death, that the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that where a man makes his bed he must lie down, all of which he considered to be good Scripture and appropriate to the occasion. "Yoah fohce met with no moah casualties, I hope, Captain Bangs? I do not see our fishing friend, Mr.

Bigglethorpe; is he safe, suh?" These questions led to an account of the fisherman's heroic attempt to release the self-imprisoned occupants of the underground pa.s.sage, of his wounds, and of the subsequent exploits of the lawyer and the detective. Coristine escaped upstairs to put himself in shape for breakfast, and to visit his wounded friend. He found that gentleman progressing very favourably, and perfectly satisfied with his accommodation.

After morning prayers, conducted by the Squire with unusual solemnity, the lawyer asked Miss Carmichael if she alone would not shake hands with him, making no allusion to any previous encounter. She complied, with a blush, and seemed pleased to infer that the Captain, above all, had not heard of her mistake. The two had no time for explanations, however, as, at the moment, Messrs. Errol and Perrowne, who had been told there was a fire out towards the Lake Settlement, came in to learn about it, and were compelled to sit down and add something substantial to their early cup of coffee. They reported the rain almost over, and the fire, so far as they could judge from the distance, the next thing to extinguished.

Once more the trays were in requisition for the invalids, and again the colonel and Mr. Perrowne acted as aids to Miss Du Plessis and Miss Halbert. Just as soon as he could draw her attention away from the minister, Coristine remarked to Miss Carmichael: "I have the worst luck of any man; I never get sick or wounded or any other trouble that needs nursing." The young lady said in a peremptory manner, "Show me your hands;" and the lawyer had to exhibit two not very presentable paws. She turned them palms up, and shuddered at the scorched, blistered and scratched appearance of them. "Where are Mr. Errol's gloves I put on you?"

"In the pocket of my wet coat in the kitchen."

"Why did you dare to take them off when I put them on?"

"Because I was like the cat in the proverb, not that I was after mice you know, but I couldn't fire in gloves."