“Let me burn and cleanse my hands,” the poor fool cried up. “No water will wash them.”
“You madman! You struck for your life and revenged your master!”
“My God! Is he dead?”
The man got to his feet in the terror of the thought.
“Is he dead?” he whispered awfully, his ghastly face pressed forward.
“No—but he’s hurt—he’s hurt. And there’s another to pull from the fire—Luvaine, that my mind misgives me lies at the source of this trouble. You’ll come, man, and help me with him, if he’s alive?”
“Yes, yes—life! Oh! show me where I can do something to save it!”
He stumbled blindly after the other, and he gave out a heavy groan as he passed by the inanimate bundle on the floor. Bloody Jack Fern showed his right title to the adjective; but it was obvious he was gone beyond considerations of rescue.
The draught drawn into the burning house had for the moment a little thinned the smoke in the passage. They took advantage of the respite, and plunged for the rearward chamber, where they assumed the victim must lie. The misty lightnings flashed from the blazing room were their only lamps of guidance; for the crash had extinguished or overturned every taper in the lower part of the building, and a reeling darkness added to the horror of the situation.
Fortunately Dennis was familiar with every stone of the old grange; and he led Sir David, who clung to his coat-skirt, with an unerring instinct. But at the very entrance of the vault they stumbled over some débris, and recovering themselves and moving forward again, down they clumped upon a flap of shattered wood-work, and near rolled into a black yawning mouth that breathed a sick vapour at them.