During a period of supreme trial Sir David showed himself a man of courage and resource. The appalling thunder of the explosion, the vision of the fiery upheaval of the floor were still in his ears and eyes, when he leapt to the immediate necessity of action and of his taking the situation by the throat. Tuke was disabled—his servant half-insane with hysteria. Somebody must rally the household, and quickly; for, though the dense pall of smoke that choked the room, fitful fires were winking and blossoming; and it was evident that the place was alight in more than one quarter. It was no time to marvel or speculate over the nature of the wild catastrophe that had occurred. His interest at the outset was to secure the escape of every inmate of the house; and he plunged into the hall with a shrieking summons to man and maid to make for the passage. Into this, heavy clouds of gaseous vapour were rolling from its further end; their direction seeming to point to the locality of the explosion. He ran to the front-door, tore open the fastenings, and flung a way into the freezing cold of the outer night. Then he rushed back and, repeating his summons, made for the stair-foot. Here he met them coming down pell-mell—choking, sobbing, feeling their way in mad terror—men, women, and the one boy.
What was it? What had happened?
His sister flung herself into his arms, imploring to be saved; Dunlone, quaking and white as a turnip, shook out curses of impotent frenzy; the maids cried and gabbled volubly, and even the boy was moved to some shrill expression of inquiry as to the cause of so stupendous a bang.
The little baronet silenced and marshalled them all. He led them—preceded by one loving soul—shivering and shrieking down the passage—into the open air; and there against a snow-drift he left them, and fled back to his duty.
Not an individual, thank God!—save those already accounted for—was injured. He came upon the master, faint and stumbling, in the hall. On one side the faithful groom supported him; on the other a poor girl received his weight. She, this pathetic maid, looked dumbly at the rescuer, wistful as a shorn lamb.
“What can you do to this?” her eyes said. They might have yearned as those of her, the mother of the cripple that was brought to Jesus.
“Help him outside,” he said, with compassion in his voice. He did not know that here his quarrel with his friend was pitifully resolved.
Through the now ruddy fog he went down into the room of death. Brander, lying in his agony at the step-foot, cried to him to save him from a horrible fate.
“The worthy first,” he said sternly, and could have found it in his heart to pity the poor wretch for the despairing moan he vented. But it was Whimple he hunted for and shrieked to; and whose prostrate form he at length stumbled upon.
“What are you doing here?” he yelled. “Do you want to be grilled like a herring?”