Then there was a queer sound of cracking somewhere, vague, faint, and
yet formidable. Darius was standing between the machines and the
dismantled window, his back to the latter. Big James and the journeyman
rushed instinctively from the centre of the floor towards him. In a
second the journeyman was on the window sill.
"What art doing?" Darius demanded roughly; but there was no sincerity
in his voice.
"Th' floor!" the journeyman excitedly exclaimed.
Big James stood close to the wall.
"And what about th' floor?" Darius challenged him obstinately.
"One o' them beams is a-going," stammered the journeyman.
"Rubbish!" shouted Darius. But simultaneously he motioned to Edwin to
move from the middle of the room, and Edwin obeyed. All four listened,
with nerves stretched to the tightest. Darius was biting his lower lip
with his upper teeth. His humour had swiftly changed to the savage.
Every warning that had been uttered for years past concerning that floor
was remembered with startling distinctness. Every impatient reassurance
offered by Darius for years past suddenly seemed fatuous and perverse.
How could any man in his senses expect the old floor to withstand such a
terrific strain as that to which Darius had at last dared to subject it?
The floor ought by rights to have given way years ago! His men ought
to have declined to obey instructions that were obviously insane. These
and similar thoughts visited the minds of Big James and the journeyman.
As for Edwin, his excitement was, on balance, pleasurable. In truth, he
could not kill in his mind the hope that the floor would yield. The
greatness of the resulting catastrophe fascinated him. He knew that he
should be disappointed if the catastrophe did not occur. That it would
mean ruinous damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds, and enormous
worry, did not influence him. His reason did not influence him, nor his
personal danger. He saw a large hook in the wall to which he could
cling when the exquisite crash came, and pictured a welter of broken
machinery and timber ten feet below him, and the immense pother that the
affair would create in the town.
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