He began now to press on swiftly, some orderly instinct of his nature soothed and his spirit quieted by the release from the chaos of unaccustomed objects which had confused him behind the scenes. The smooth corridor, the absence of all obstruction, the sense of progress, as if so conventional a passage must lead to some objective point of exit, some chance of escape, encouraged him. He had known little as to the usual construction of theatres, but rallying his faculties, his memory, his intuition, his observation, he began to appreciate where he was. The wall on his left hand, he reflected, must inclose those stores by which the greater frontage on the street was utilized; in their rear the immense semicircular auditorium of the theatre filled the space, for the shops were of a kind that required no great conveniences of storage,—he remembered them now, a florist's establishment, a tobacconist's stand, a photographer's gallery,—and most of the rooms of the upper stories were occupied as offices. Thus the lofty windows above the gallery gave the auditorium of the theatre its only source of ventilation and of light except, indeed, from artificial means. A door opened on the side street, and some windows were in the rear, and the house was provided with no other exit in front than a great door, at the end of a long, tunnel-like lobby, opening upon the broad avenue, which served for the admission and the dispersal of the audience.
Even while he was mentally recapitulating these points he became suddenly uncertain as to this unique source of light, for as he progressed the darkness about him had become visibly mitigated. It was dimness rather than obscurity now,—a medium dull indeed, but which permitted the discrimination of surrounding objects. Ned paused suspiciously. Silence reigned,—dead silence! No conflagration as yet! He asked himself if he could be approaching some door or window, some opportunity of exit hitherto unknown to him, for the corridor, the periphery, as it were, of the semicircular auditorium, was light enough now for him to distinguish the curving walls on either hand, the terra-cotta tints predominating in their frescoed panels, the darker terra-cotta tone of the carpet beneath his feet,—nay, as he came to the point of intersection with the lobby leading to the street door he saw the gilded frames of the portraits of famous actors on the walls, and recognized Booth, Barrett, McCullough, and Irving! The great door was fast shut—no hope thence. The little wicket of the barricade across the lobby, that served to hold back the press of the people from the ticket-taker, was ajar, and from the box-office, at one side, came a dim suffusion of light. He stood still with a wildly beating heart,—for he heard from an inner room beyond the office the sibilant, cautious tone of a half whisper, and now and again the metallic clink of some instrument dexterously handled. The thieves were still working at the safe,—and as yet it held fast!
It was instinct rather than a realized prudence that set the frightened boy scurrying like a rabbit away from that dangerous zone of light. Miscreants such as these, suddenly discovered in their nefarious job, would not hesitate at murder, more than at larceny and arson, and his bones in the midst of the débris of the great fire would never be found to tell his forlorn fate. But that the wall guided him from the foyer and along the corridor, he could not have regained the stage door; he hardly knew how he had reached it; he realized only that he was once more in the inextricable tangle of flats and wings and ropes and stage furniture behind the scenes, and wildly seeking the window at which he had gained entrance to this troublous episode in his life.
Still the moonbeams streamed through those lofty casements above the gallery and down upon the immaterial audience of thronging shadows in the place of the brilliant assemblage so lately vanished thence. With melancholy intimations, the white sheeny radiance sent vague, phantasmal gleams across the broad spread of the stage and along the dreary vistas of the wings, where the sham misery of imagination is wont to ape the real tragedy of life. Here the contrast with the utter darkness was so sharp, the setting for a single figure so conspicuous, that Ned scuttled hastily across the stage, himself like a wavering shadow, and plunged into the turmoil of confusion beyond, searching here and there and everywhere for the back window at which he had entered.
He had lost in a measure the self-control which he had hitherto staunchly maintained. He was awkward, clumsy, agitated. More than once he tangled his foot in a swaying rope; here and there he ran plumply against the huge canvas-covered frames, and set up a quivering totter along their great heights; he wondered that he did not scream outright when at last he fairly fell, plunging bodily into a mimic boat adjusted on rockers to simulate the tossing of the waves. Nevertheless, hearing the floor resound with the impact of his fall, he had the presence of mind to lie still at the bottom of the craft, listening and fearing that the noise might have roused the thieves to apprehension and a tour of discovery. This would doubtless have ensued, but fortunately for him another sound pervaded the theatre just at that moment, and overpowered the concussion of his fall,—a dull, low roar it was, then utter silence.
Ned knew that the safe had been forced at last, and that the explosion had served to avert the discovery of his presence through the crash of his noisy misadventure. He rose from the boat, trembling, weak, but animated with a new hope. The finding of the craft here intimated that he was near the wall, where it had doubtless been heedlessly thrust aside, for it had naught to do with the play of Hamlet, and the furnishings of the castle of Elsinore filled all the foreground. He must now be near the rear wall, where was the window at which he had entered.
Suddenly he saw before him the dim, wan square in the gloom. The next moment despair fell anew upon him. The sash was down, and secured by some patent device which he had never before seen, and which baffled his trembling fingers.
Then he did scream,—a shrill, muffled cry,—so unlike his sturdy boyish halloo that he hardly recognized his own voice. Somehow it rescued him from the torpor that was stealing over him. He knew that it would rouse those within to a danger of which they had not dreamed. In another moment he might be helpless in their hands.
Instantly he tore off his shoe. One blow with its heel, and the shivered glass was flying in every direction. Through the broken pane he hastily jumped, with the shoe still in his hand. He fell heavily to the ground, and lay crouching in the shadow close in to the wall.
He had indeed given the alarm. There were swift steps within, and then an agitated whispering at the window.