It was a terrible position, and for a few moments Hilary felt helpless
to move.
That blue stream of fire came gurgling and fluttering beneath the door,
spreading rapidly over the floor, filling the chapel with a ghastly
glare; and the prisoner saw that in a few moments it would reach the
straw.
Even in those exciting moments he fully comprehended the affair. He
knew, as in a case he had once seen on shipboard, that this was spirit
of extraordinary strength, and that the vapour would explode wherever it
gathered, even while the surface of the stream was burning.
He did not stand still, though, to think, but with all the
matter-of-fact, business habitude of one accustomed to a life of
emergencies, he proceeded to drag the straw into the corner farthest
away from the increasing flame.
The next minute he saw that this corner was the one nearest the window,
and that if he had to take refuge there, and the flame extended to the
straw, there would be a tremendous blaze almost beneath him.
Setting to work, he dragged it away into another corner, sweeping up the
loose pieces as rapidly as he could, and even as he did so the
fluttering blue-and-orange flames advanced steadily across the floor,
cutting off his access to the window, and rapidly spreading now all over
the place, for the passage had a gradual descent to the door, and nearly
the whole of the spilt spirit came bubbling and streaming in.
It was a beautiful, although an appalling sight, for the surface of the
spirit was all dancing tongues of fire--red, blue, and orange, mingled
with tiny puffs of smoke and bright sparks as it consumed the fragments
of straw that lay upon the stones.
It had reached the opposite wall now, and ran as well right up to the
window, the floor being now one blaze, except in the corner where Hilary
stood on guard, as if to keep the flames back from the straw.
But now he found that he had another enemy with which to contend, for a
peculiarly stifling vapour was arising, producing a sensation of
giddiness, against which he could not battle; and as Hilary drew back
from the approach of the tiny sea of waves of fire, pressing back, as he
did so, the straw, he felt that unless he could reach the window he
would be overcome.
There was no time for pause; help, if it were coming, could not reach
him yet. In another instant he knew that the straw would catch fire.
Even now a little rill of spirit had run to it, along which the flames
were travelling, so, nerving himself for the effort, he made a dash to
cross to the window.
At his first step the burning spirit splashed up in blue flames; at his
second, the fire rose above his ankles; then, placing his foot upon a
plate that had been left upon the floor, he slipped and fell headlong
into the burning tongues that seemed to rise and lick him angrily.
The sensation was sharp to his hands, but not too pungent, and,
fortunately, he kept his face from contact with the floor, while
struggling up he for the moment lost his nerve, and felt ready to rush
frantically about the place.
Fortunately, however, he mastered himself, and dashed at the window,
leaped at the sill, and climbed up to breathe the pure cool air that was
rushing in, just as the straw caught fire, blazed up furiously, and the
place rapidly filled with rolling clouds of smoke.
He could not notice it, however, for the flames that fluttered about his
garments where they were soaked with the spirit, and for some few
minutes he thought of nothing but extinguishing the purply blaze.
They burned him but slightly, and in several places went out as the
spirit became exhausted; but here and there the woollen material of his
garments began to burn with a peculiar odour before he had extinguished
the last spark.
Meanwhile, although the straw blazed furiously, and the smoke filled the
place so that respiration would have been impossible, no help came. The
spirit fluttered and danced as it burned, and save here and there where
it lay in inequalities of the floor, it was nearly consumed, the danger
now being from the straw, which still blazed.
Fortunately for Hilary, although he could feel the glow, his foresight
in sweeping it to one corner saved him from being incommoded, and the
heat caused a current of cool night-air to set in through the window and
keep back the blinding and stifling fumes.
He listened, and could hear shouts in the distance; but no one came to
his help, and he could not avoid feeling that if he had been dependent
upon aid from without he must have lost his life. Fortunately for him,
just at a time when his fate seemed sealed, the flames from the burning
straw reached their height, and though they blackened the ceiling they
did no worse harm, but exhausted from the want of supply they sank lower
and lower. There was not a scrap of furniture in the place, or salient
piece of wood to catch fire, and so as the spirit burned out, and the
blazing straw settled down into some blackened sparkling ash, Hilary's
spirits rose, and with the reaction as he clung there by the window came
a feeling of indignation.
"If I don't be even with some of them for this!" he muttered. "They
half starve me, and then try to burn me to death."
"Yes, that's right," he cried. "Bravo, heroes! Come, now the danger's
over."
For as he sat there he could hear hurrying feet, the rattle of a key in
the chapel door, and shouts to him to come out.
The smoke was so dense that the fresh comers could not possibly see him
where he sat in the window, and they cried to him again to come out.
"I sha'n't come," said Hilary to himself; "you'll only lock me up
somewhere else, and now I have found out as much as I have, perhaps I
shall be better off where I am."
"There'll be a pretty noise about this when Sir Henry comes back," cried
a voice, which Hilary recognised as that of the ill-looking fellow
Allstone. "You clumsy fool, dropping that keg!"
"It was as much you as me," cried another. "I sha'n't take all the
blame."
"The lad's burned to death through your clumsiness," continued Allstone.
"And a whole keg of the strongest brandy wasted," said another
dolefully.
"The place nearly burned down too," said another.
"Here, go in somebody," cried Allstone. "Perhaps he isn't quite dead,
and I suppose we must save him if we can. Do you hear? Go in some of
you."
"Who's going in?" said another voice. "There's smoke enough to choke
you. Why don't you go in yourself?"
"Because I tell you to go," cried Allstone savagely. "I'm master here
when the skipper's away, and I'll be obeyed. Go in, two of you, and
fetch the boy out."
"He don't want no fetching out," said one of the men, as the current of
air that set from the window drove the smoke aside and revealed the
dimly-seen figure of Hilary seated in the embrasure holding on to the
iron bars. "He don't want no help; there he sits."
Allstone, who had been seized with a fit of coughing and choking from
the effects of the blinding, pungent smoke, did not speak for a few
moments, during which the smoke went on getting thinner and thinner,
though, as the men had no lights, everything was still very obscure.
"Oh, you're up there, are you?" cried Allstone at last. "Come down,
sir; do you hear?" And he spoke as if he were addressing a disobedient
dog; but Hilary remained perfectly silent, truth to say, almost
speechless from indignation.
"What do you mean by pretending to be smothered and burned to death,
hey?" cried the fellow again, roughly. "Why don't you answer? Get
down."
"Out, bully!" cried Hilary angrily. "Why, you insolent dog, how dare
you speak to a king's officer like that? Why, you ugly,
indecent-looking outrage upon humanity, you set fire to the place
through your clumsiness, and then come and insult me for not being
burned to death."
"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed one of the men. "Well crowed, young gamecock."
"You cowardly lubbers, why didn't you come sooner to help me, instead of
leaving me to frizzle here? I might have burned to death a dozen times
for aught you cared."
"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed a couple of the men now, to Allstone's great
annoyance.
"Hold your tongue, and come down, boy," he cried. "You can't stop
there."
"Be off and lock the door again, bully," cried Hilary. "You great ugly,
cowardly hound, if I had you on board the _Kestrel_, you should be
triced up and have five dozen on your bare back."
"Haw! haw! haw!" came in a regular chorus this time, for the danger was
over.
"I'd like to look on while the crew of you were being talked to by the
boatswain," cried Hilary, angrily--"a set of cowardly loons."
"That'll do!" cried Allstone, who was hoarse with passion. "Go in and
fetch him out."
No one stirred, and Allstone went in himself, but only to be seized with
a furious fit of coughing which lasted a couple of minutes or so, and to
his companions' intense delight.
The fit over, the fellow went in again and stood beneath the window.
"Come down!" he cried; but as Hilary did not condescend to notice him
Allstone seized the young man by one of his legs, with the result that
he clung with both hands to the iron bars, and raising up his knees for
a moment, kicked out with as much cleverness as his friend the jackass,
catching Allstone full in the chest and sending him staggering back for
a few steps, where, unable to recover his balance, he went down heavily
in a sitting position.
There was a roar of laughter from his companions, who stamped about,
slapped their legs, and literally danced with delight; while, in spite
of his anger and indignation at this scoundrel of a smuggler daring to
touch a king's officer, Hilary could not help feeling amused.
But matters looked tragic directly after instead of comic, for, uttering
a fierce oath, the man sprang up, pulled out his cutlass and made at the
prisoner.
Active as a leopard, Hilary sprang down to avoid him, when the pieces of
the broken plate--the remains of that which had thrown the young officer
down into the burning spirit--this time befriended him, for Allstone
stepped upon a large fragment, slipped, fell sprawling, and the cutlass
flew from his hand with a loud jangling noise in the far corner upon the
stone floor.
Quick as lightning, and while the other men were roaring with laughter,
Hilary dashed at the cutlass, picked it up, and, assuming now the part
of aggressor, he turned upon Allstone, presenting the point of his
weapon, and drove the ruffian before him out of the place, turning the
next moment upon his companions, who offered not the slightest
resistance, but retreated before him laughing with all their might.
Hilary was about to seize the opportunity to chase them onward through
the passage and try to escape, but Allstone was too quick for him.
On being driven out the man had taken refuge behind the door, and as the
last man of his companions passed he dashed it to, striking Hilary full
and driving him backwards into the chapel, as it slammed against the
post with a heavy echo, and was locked and bolted.
"Stop there, and starve and rot," the ruffian cried through the keyhole
furiously, as Hilary stood panting and shaking first one hand and then
the other, against which the door, to the saving of his face, had come
with tremendous force.
"We'll see about that," said Hilary to himself, as he gave the cutlass a
flourish; and then, as the steps died down the passage and he heard the
farther door close, with the steps of the men passing over the empty
boarded room, he laughed at the change that had come over the scene
during the last quarter of an hour.