Part 38 (1/2)
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 a.s.sumed 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 n.o.body knows all these things but you and me, and n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+lling reward for being first to give the call, and then went leisurely home to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
AT THE POST OF DUTY.
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; pa.s.sers-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 repet.i.tion 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 succ.u.mbed, and was snoring out his allegiance to the great conqueror, when the policeman on the beat dashed open his door and shouted ”Fire!”