Fire!
I went to bed determined not to sleep, but to keep my ears open for any
sound in the passage outside. Luckily there was a creaky board on which
he had stepped a few minutes ago. If he attempted to go away during the
night he would very possibly step on it again. But I was exceedingly
tired after my long journey. Before I had been in bed an hour I was
dreaming so vividly a pursuit of my quarry through the streets of San
Francisco, that I fully believed I had waked, got up, and gone out after
him.
In the end the dream seemed to change. The pretender had boarded a
railway train, and I was with the engine-driver of another, following at
a dare-devil speed. The place was reeking hot. In my dream I choked in
the smoke which flew into my face, and was dazzled with the red glare of
the fire, on which the engine-driver was piling great pieces of fat
bacon. As we flew along the rails the locomotive swayed from side to
side, and I could hear a loud rattling of wheels and of window glass.
Suddenly a puff of smoke seemed on the very point of stifling me, and I
awoke to find myself sitting up in bed and gasping for breath.
I had not dreamed the rattling of glass, nor the jarring sensation, nor
yet the smoke and heat and lurid light. The walls shook with a dull
vibration, and the window-panes were like castanets. Through the glass
transom over the door I could see a shimmering, ruddy glow that rose and
fell, and was brightened by bursting sparks and little darting tongues
of yellow flame. Apart from this one lurid spot all was thickly
curtained into darkness by a heavy pall of smoke.
Had I lain for a few moments longer I must have suffocated in my sleep.
Even as it was, my brain felt dull and stupid, and I could scarcely
collect my senses.
Choking and coughing, tears running from my eyes that smarted with the
pungent wood smoke, I sprang out of bed, and then sat down again with a
slight exclamation, drawing up my feet. The floor was so hot that the
touch of it, even for an instant, had almost scorched my skin.
Close at hand were my boots. I drew them on and then fumbled about for
one or two articles of clothing. The wild light that rushed past the
transom told me that escape by way of the passage was already cut off,
and even as I looked a small, curling tress of flame blew in through the
crack between the door and the worn sill.
The window was less easy to find. As I felt for it through the veil of
smoke strange conjectures stole into my brain. What if this were the
plan of Carson Wildred's wily accomplice for getting safely rid of me?
I had no intention of being got rid of thus easily, however. I found the
window and opened the lower sash. With the rush of air from outside my
oppressed lungs got relief for a second or two, but the draught drew in
the flames that rioted through the hall; the glass in the transom,
already cracked, burst with a loud explosive sound, and a torrent of
fire and smoke poured in through the aperture.
Had I not leaped on to the window-sill, and without an instant's
hesitation let myself swing over, I could not have kept my senses in
that raging furnace.
If I had had a room in the main building of the hotel, I should only
have had to step on to a verandah outside my window, but in this wing
(which I had chosen as my place of residence because I had inhabited it
before) there was nothing of the sort, and I had now the space of about
ten seconds to decide whether to jump or have my hands burnt off my
wrists.
In any case the decision could not have been a difficult one, but, as it
happened, the need was rendered the more imperative by the fact that
smoke had already begun to pour from the window below. Very shortly
escape would be cut off in all directions.
My room was on the second floor, high enough to give me a severe fall,
perhaps a fatal one, and I felt that my life was of value now.
Cautiously but hurriedly I reached out with one hand to the side of the
window, hanging with all my weight from the other, which clutched the
sill. My groping fingers came in contact with a twisted rope of
creepers; bare of leaves for winter, and serviceable for the use I
wished to put it to. I grasped the thick stems for dear life, and went
down hand over hand, dimly hearing voices from below cheering me in my
descent.
I had been unconscious of the noise until that moment, but as my feet
touched the ground I was received with acclamations, and saw that a
crowd was rapidly collecting on the spot. The firemen were arriving, and
as I reached _terra firma_ a great spout of water went up over the
burning wing.
The main portion of the house, which was built of stone, save for the
surrounding verandahs was still uninjured, but the wing at the back,
which had been a later addition, run hastily up to meet the needs of
business, was of frame, and it was burning like tinder. Though it seemed
that the alarm had only been given five minutes before my appearance on
the scene, already it was beyond saving. My reason for preferring the
wing I have already stated, but what the pretended Harvey Farnham's had
been I had yet to learn, for so far was the main portion of the hotel
from being crowded on this occasion, that we two had been the only ones
who slept in the annex. Otherwise the alarm must have been given from
inside, instead of by a policeman, who had seen a sudden light leap up
while passing on his beat.
Where was Mr. Farnham? That was the question asked by the excited
landlord, who, half-dressed, had come out to give what help he could. By
this time a sheet of flame was pouring from his windows, so much more
violent than in any other portion of the fated wing, that I could but
fancy, as I looked up, that the fire must have started thereabouts.
The only hope was to save the main building--the frame addition had been
doomed from the first. Everyone had come out, guests and servants alike,
in varying stages of deshabille, which might under ordinary
circumstances have struck one as comic enough, but the supposed Farnham
was nowhere to be seen.
When it became known that there was another occupant of the burning
annex, the firemen made heroic efforts to reach the windows on their
ladders, but each time they were beaten back by the blinding flame and
smoke--a salamander could not have existed there for an instant.
Murmurs of horror and dismay came from the lips of the crowd as they
stared with a species of fearful fascination at the flames, which must
long ago have destroyed, not only life, but all vestiges of humanity, if
indeed a human being had been there when they began their revel. But I
said nothing. I thought now that I understood the reason why my friend
had taken the room in the frame addition to the Santa Anna Hotel. The
plan commenced to take form in my mind, and I believed that the
cablegram had only precipitated its execution.