“And stay here and be blown to blazes?” cried Hawkins. “No, sir! Down she goes!”
He seized a stool and dealt a crashing blow upon the panel. It splintered. He raised the stool again, and I could hear footsteps hurrying from below. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, and——
Well, I don't know that I can describe my sensations with any accuracy, vivid as they were at the time.
Some resistless force lifted me from the floor and propelled me toward the half shattered door. Dimly I noted that the same thing had happened to Hawkins. For the tiniest fraction of a second he seemed to be floating horizontally in the air. Then I felt my head collide with wood; the door parted, and I shot through the opening.
I saw the hallway before me; I remember observing with vague wonder that the gas-light went out just as it caught my eye. And then an awful flash blinded me, a roar of ten thousand cannon seemed to split my skull—and that was all.
My eyes opened in the Hawkins' drawing-room—or what remained of it. Our family physician was diligently winding a bandage around my right ankle. An important-looking youth in the uniform of an ambulance surgeon was stitching up a portion of my left forearm with cheerful nonchalance.
My brand new dress suit, I observed, had lost all semblance to an article of clothing; they had covered me, as I lay upon the couch, with a torn portiere.
{Illustration: “I saw the figure of a policeman standing tiptoe upon a satin chair."}
The apartment was strangely dark. Here and there stood a lantern, such as are used by the fire department. In the dim light, I saw the figure of a policeman standing tiptoe upon a satin chair, plugging with soap the broken gaspipe which had once supported the Hawkins' chandelier.
The ceiling was all down. The walls were bare to the lath in huge patches. The windows had disappeared, and a chill autumn night wind swept through the room.