Fighting the Flames, R. M. Ballantyne [spiritual books to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «Fighting the Flames, R. M. Ballantyne [spiritual books to read .TXT] 📗». Author R. M. Ballantyne
“No,” cried Gorman, “I’ll not wait. I have waited long enough. How long would you have me wait—eh? Moreover, I’m not hard on you. I show you an easy way to make a good thing of it, and you’re so chicken-hearted that you’re afraid to do it.”
“It’s such a mean thing to do,” said Boone.
“Mean! Why, what do you call the style of carrying on business that you started with seven years ago, and have practised more or less ever since?”
“That is mean, too,” said Boone; “I’m ashamed of it; sorry for it. It was for a time successful no doubt, and I have actually paid off all my creditors except yourself, but I don’t think it the less mean on that account, and I’m thoroughly ashamed of it.”
There was a good deal of firmness in Boone’s tone as he said this, and his companion was silent for a few minutes.
“I have arranged,” he said at last, “about your making over your policies of insurance to me as security for the debt you owe me. You won’t have to pay them next half-year, I’ll do that for you if necessary.” He laughed as he said this. “I have now come to ask you to set the house alight, and have the plan carried out, and the whole affair comfortably settled.”
Gorman said this in an encouraging voice, assuming that his dupe was ready to act.
“B–but it’s awful to think of,” said Boone; “suppose it’s found out?”
“How can it be found out?”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s wonderful how crime is discovered,” said Boone despondingly; “besides, think of the risk we run of burning the people who live above, as well as my two clerks who sleep in the room below us; that would be murder, you know. I’m sure I have tried my very best to get Miss Tippet to go from home for a short time, I’ve almost let the cat out of the bag in my anxiety, but she won’t take the hint.”
“Oho!” exclaimed Gorman, with a laugh.
“Well, have you made the arrangements as I directed you last night?”
“Yes, I’ve got a lot of tarry oakum scattered about, and there is a pile of shavings,” he added, pointing to a corner of the room; “the only thing I’m anxious about is that my young man Robert Roddy caught me pouring turpentine on the walls and floor of the shop. I pretended that it was water I had in the can, and that I was sprinkling it to lay the dust before sweeping up. Roddy is a slow, stupid youth; he always was, and, I daresay, did not notice the smell.”
Gorman was himself filled with anxiety on hearing the first part of this, but at the conclusion he appeared relieved.
“It’s lucky you turned it off so,” said he, “and Roddy is a stupid fellow. I daresay he has no suspicion. In fact, I am sure of it.”
“It’s not of much importance now, however,” said Boone, rising and confronting his friend with more firmness than he had ever before exhibited to him, “because I have resolved not to do it.”
Gorman lit his pipe at the fire, looking at the bowl of it with a scornful smile as he replied—
“Oh! you have made up your mind, have you?”
“Yes, decidedly. Nothing will move me. You may do your worst.”
“Very good,” remarked Gorman, advancing with the lighted paper towards the heap of shavings.
Boone sprang towards him, and, seizing his arms, grasped the light and crushed it out.
“What would you do, madman?” he cried. “You can only ruin me, but do you not know that I will have the power to denounce you as a fire-raiser?”
Gorman laughed, and returned to the fireplace, while Boone sat down on a chair almost overcome with terror.
“What! you dare to defy me?” said Gorman, with an air of assumed pity. “A pretty case you would have to make out of it. You fill your shop with combustibles, you warn your tenant upstairs to get out of the premises for a time in a way that must be quite unaccountable to her (until the fire accounts for it), and your own clerk sees you spilling turpentine about the place the day before the fire occurs, and yet you have the stupidity to suppose that people will believe you when you denounce me!”
Poor David Boone’s wits seemed to be sharpened by his despair, for he said suddenly, after a short pause—
“If the case is so bad it will tell against yourself, Gorman, for I shall be certainly convicted, and the insurance will not be paid to you.”
“Ay, but the case is not so bad as it looks,” said Gorman, “if you only have the sense to hold your tongue and do what you are told; for nobody knows all these things but you and me, and nobody can put them together except ourselves—d’ye see?”
“It matters not,” said Boone firmly; “I won’t do it—there!”
Both men leaped up. At the same moment there was a sound as of something falling in the shop. They looked at each other.
“Go see what it is,” said Gorman.
The other stepped to the door.
“It’s only two of my wax-dolls tumbled off the shelf,” he said on returning.
An exclamation of horror escaped him, for he saw that the heap of shavings had been set on fire during his momentary absence, and Gorman stood watching them with a demoniacal grin.
Boone was struck dumb. He could not move or speak. He made a feeble effort to stretch out his hands as if to extinguish the fire, but Gorman seized him in his powerful grasp and held him fast. In a few seconds the flames were leaping up the walls, and the room was so full of smoke that they were driven into the front shop.
“Now, then,” said Gorman in a fierce whisper, “your only chance is to act out your part as wisely as you can. Shout fire! now till you’re black in the face—fire! Fire!! Fire!!!”
David Boone obeyed with all his might, and, when Gorman released him, ran back into the parlour to try to extinguish the flames, but he was driven back again, scorched and half-choked, while Gorman ran off at full speed to the nearest station, gave the alarm, received the shilling reward for being first to give the call, and then went leisurely home to bed.
Fire! There is something appalling in the cry to most ears; something deadly in the sound; something that tells of imminent danger and urgent haste. After David Boone’s first alarm was given, other voices took it up; passers-by became suddenly wild, darted about spasmodically and shouted it; late sitters-up flung open their windows and proclaimed it; sleepers awoke crying, “What! where?” and, huddling on their clothes, rushed out to look at it; little boys yelled it; frantic females screamed it, and in a few minutes the hubbub in Poorthing Lane swelled into a steady roar.
Among the sound sleepers in that region was Miss Deemas. The fair head of that lady reposed on its soft pillow all unconscious of the fact that she was even then being gently smoked before being roasted alive.
Miss Tippet, on the very first note of alarm, bounced out of bed with an emphatic “There!” which was meant to announce the triumphant fulfilment of an old prophecy which she had been in the habit of making for some time past; namely, that Matty Merryon would certainly set the house on fire if she did not take care!
The energy with which Miss Tippet sprang to the floor and exclaimed “There!” caused Emma Ward to open her eyes to the utmost possible extent, and exclaim, “Where?”
Without waiting for a reply she too bounded out of bed like an indiarubber ball, and seeing (for there was always a night-light in the room) that Miss Tippet’s face was as white as her night-dress, she attempted to shriek, but failed, owing to a lump of some kind that had got somehow into her throat, and which refused to be swallowed on any terms.
The repetition of the cry, “Fire! fire!” outside, induced both ladies at once to become insane. Miss Tippet, with a touch of method even in her madness, seized the counterpane, wrapped it round her, and rushed out of the room and downstairs. Emma followed her example with a blanket, and also fled, just as Matty Merryon, who slept in an attic room above, tumbled down her wooden staircase and burst into the room by another door, uttering a wild exclamation that was choked in the bud partly by terror, partly by smoke. Attempting in vain to wrap herself in a bolster, Matty followed her mistress. All three had utterly forgotten the existence of Miss Deemas. That strong-minded lady being, as we have hinted, a sound sleeper, was not awakened by the commotion in the street. In fact, she was above such weaknesses. Becoming aware of a crackling sound and a sensation of smoke, she smiled sweetly in her slumbers, and, turning gently on her other side, with a sigh, dreamed ardently of fried ham and eggs—her usual breakfast.
While these events were occurring the cry of fire had reached the ears of one of London’s guardians; our friend Samuel Forest. That stout-hearted man was seated at the time rapping the sides of his sentry-box with his head, in a useless struggle with sleep. He had just succumbed, and was snoring out his allegiance to the great conqueror, when the policeman on the beat dashed open his door and shouted “Fire!”
Sam was a calm, self-possessed man. He was no more flurried by this sudden, unexpected, and fierce shout of “Fire,” than he would have been if the policeman had in a mild voice made a statement of water. But, although self-possessed and cool, Sam was not slow. With one energetic effort he tripped up and floored the conqueror with one hand, as it were, while he put on his black helmet with the other, and in three minutes more the fire-escape was seen coming up the lane like a rampant monster of the antediluvian period.
It was received by the crowd with frantic cheers, because they had just become aware that a lady was asleep in one of the upper rooms, which were by that time unapproachable, owing to the lower part of the staircase having caught fire.
The fact was made known with a sudden look of horror by Miss Tippet, who, with Emma Ward, had been rescued from the first-floor window by a gallant policeman. This man, having procured a ladder, entered the house at considerable personal risk, and carried the ladies out in safety, one after the other; an event, we may remark in passing, which is not of rare occurrence at London fires, where the police are noted for their efficient services and for the daring of some of the members of the force, many of whom have received medals and other rewards for acts of personal daring in attempting to save life before the firemen had arrived on the ground.
Having put Miss Tippet and Emma in a place of security, the policeman was about to make a desperate attempt to reach the upper floor by rushing through the flames, when the escape came up and rendered it unnecessary.
Dozens of tongues and hundreds of voices directed Sam Forest to the right window. He pointed his escape towards it, but so vigorous was the uninvited assistance lent by the crowd that the head of the machine went crashing through it and dashed the frame into the middle of the room.
To say that Miss Deemas was horror-struck by such an awakening would be to use a mild expression. Her strong mind was not strong enough to prevent her strong body from trembling like an aspen leaf, as she lay for a few moments unable to cry or move. Suddenly she believed that she was dreaming, and that the instrument which had burst through her window was
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