The Eagle Cliff, R. M. Ballantyne [best fiction books to read .txt] 📗

and, as it were, blew him up moderately. Being thus surprised into letting go his hold of the tree, he was urged slowly forward as before. You see, we did not want to kill the beast, though he richly deserved death, having killed so many natives, besides keeping a whole neighbourhood in alarm for years. We were anxious to take him to camp, and we managed it at last, though the difficulty was almost superhuman, and may to some extent be conceived when I tell you that, although we spent the whole of that day, from dawn to sunset, struggling with our obstinate captive, and with the entire force of the khedda, we only advanced to the extent of four or five hundred yards!”

Now, while this amazing story was being told by Giles Jackman to his friends in Barret’s room, a very different story was being told in the room above them. That room was the nursery, and its only occupants were little Flo and her black doll. The rain had cleared off towards the afternoon, and a gleam of sunshine entering the nursery windows, had formed a spot of intense light on the nursery floor. This seemed to have suggested something of great interest to Flo, for, after gazing at it with bright eyes for some time, she suddenly held the doll before her and said—

“Blackie, I’m goin’ to tell you a stowy—a bustingly intewestin’ stowy.”

We must remind the reader here that Flo was naturally simple and sweet, and that as Junkie was her chief playmate, she was scarcely responsible for her language.

“The stowy,” continued Flo, “is all ’bout Doan of Ak, who was bu’nt by some naughty men, long, long ago! D’you hear, Blackie? It would make your hair stand on end—if you had any!”

Thereupon the little one set Blackie on a stool, propped her against the wall, and gave her a fairly correct account of the death of the unfortunate Joan of Arc, as related by Mrs Gordon that morning. She wound up with the question,—“Now, what you think of zat, Blackie?”

As Blackie would not answer, Flo had to draw on her own bank of imagination for further supplies of thought.

“Come,” she cried, suddenly, with the eagerness of one whose cheque has just been honoured; “let’s play at Doan of Ak! You will be Doan, and I will be the naughty men. I’ll bu’n you! You mustn’t squeal, or kick up a wumpus, you know, but be dood.”

Having made this stipulation, our little heroine placed the black martyr on an old-fashioned straw-bottomed chair near the window, and getting hold of a quantity of paper and some old cotton dresses, she piled the whole round Blackie to represent faggots. This done, she stepped back and surveyed her work as an artist might study a picture.

“You’ve dot your best muslin fock on, da’ling, an it’ll be spoiled; but I don’t care for zat. Now, say your pays, Doan.”

With this admonitory remark, Flo screwed up a piece of paper, went to the fireplace, made a very long arm through the fender, and lighted it. Next moment she applied the flame to the faggots, which blazed up with surprising rapidity.

Stepping quickly back, the dear little child gazed at her work with intense delight beaming from every feature.

“Now be dood, Blackie. Don’t make a wumpus!” she said; and as she said it, the flames caught the window curtains and went up with a flare that caused Flo to shout with mingled delight and alarm.

“I wonder,” remarked Mrs Gordon, who chanced to be in the drawing-room on the windward side of the nursery, “what amuses Flo so much!”

She arose and went, leisurely, to see.

Roderick, the groom, being in the harness-room on the lee side of the nursery at the time, made a remark with the same opening words.

“I wonder,” said he, “what that wull pe!” A sniffing action of the nose told what “that” meant. “Don’t you smell a smell, Tonal’?”

Donald sniffed, and replied that he did—“what-ë-ver.”

“It wull pe somethin’ on fire, Tonal’,” said the groom, dropping the harness-brush and running out to the yard.

Donald being of the same opinion, followed him. At the same moment a piercing shriek was heard to issue from the house and wild confusion followed.

“Fire! fire!” yelled a voice in the yard outside, with that intensity of meaning which is born of thorough conviction.

Who that has never been roused by “fire!” can imagine the sensations that the cry evokes, and who that really has experienced those sensations can hope to explain them to the inexperienced? We cannot. We will not try.

But let us not plunge with undue haste into a fire!

It will be remembered that we left Jackman in Barret’s room, having just ended his elephant story, to the satisfaction of his friends, while Mrs Gordon was on her way to the nursery, bent on investigation. Well, the voice that shrieked in the nursery was that of Mrs Gordon, and that which yelled in the yard was the voice of the groom, supplemented by Donald’s treble.

Of course the gentlemen sprang to their feet, on hearing the uproar, dashed from the room in a body, and made straight for the nursery. On the way they met Mrs Gordon with Flo in her arms—all safe; not a hair of her pretty little head singed, but looking rather appalled by the consequences of what she had done.

“Safe! thank God!” exclaimed the laird, turning and descending with his wife and child, with some vague thoughts that he might be likely to find Mrs Moss in her favourite place of resort, the library.

He was right. He found her there in a dead faint on the floor. He also found his three boys there, exerting themselves desperately to haul her out of the room by a foot and an arm and the skirt of her dress.

“We knew she was here, daddy,” gasped Eddie, “and came straight to help her.”

“Out o’ the way!” cried the laird as he grasped Mrs Moss in his arms and bore her away. “Mother and Flo are safe, boys. Look out for yourselves.”

“I’ll go for the photographs! Come, help me, Ted,” cried Archie, as he ran up the now smoking stairs.

“I’ll go for Milly!” cried the heroic Junkie, as, with flashing eyes, he dashed towards her room.

But Barret had gone for Milly before him! and without success. She was not in her room. “Milly! Milly!” he shouted, in tones of undisguised anxiety, as he burst out of the nursery, after finding, with his companions, that no one was there and that suffocation was imminent. Then, as no Milly replied, he rushed up to the garret in the belief that she might have taken refuge there or on the roof in her terror.

Just after he had rushed out of the nursery, Junkie burst in. The boy was in his element now. We do not mean that he was a salamander and revelled in fire and smoke, but he had read of fires and heard of them till his own little soul was ablaze with a desire to save some one from a fire—any one—somehow, or anyhow! Finding, like the rest, that he could scarcely breathe, he made but one swift circuit of the room. In doing so he tumbled on the chair on which the cause of all the mischief still sat smoking, but undeniably “dood!”

“Blackie!” he gasped, and seized hold of her denuded but still unconsumed wooden body.

A few moments later he sprang through the entrance door and tumbled out on the lawn, where most of the females of the establishment were standing.

“Saved!” he cried, in a voice of choking triumph, as he rose and held up the rescued and smoking doll.

“Doan! my da’ling Doan!” cried Flo, extending her arms eagerly to receive the martyr.

By that time the house was fairly alight in its upper storey, despite the utmost efforts of all the men to extinguish the fire with buckets of water.

“No use, no use to waste time trying,” said the laird, as he ran out among the females on the lawn. “Is everybody safe? eh? Milly—where’s Milly?”

“Milly! where’s Milly?” echoed a stentorian voice, as Barret bounded out of the smoking house with singed hair and blackened face.

“There—there she is!” cried several of the party, as they pointed towards the avenue leading to the house.

All eyes were eagerly turned in that direction, and a general exclamation of thankfulness escaped, as Milly was seen running towards the scene of action. She had been down seeing old Mrs Donaldson, and knew nothing of what had occurred, till she came in sight of the conflagration.