The Curse of Carne's Hold: A Tale of Adventure

by G. A. Henty

Two or three minutes' running took them up on to the lawn.

"I will go and lend a hand at those pumps," Jacob Carey said.

"It's not the slightest use," Mr. Armstrong replied. "You might as well try to blow out that fire with your breath as to put it out by throwing a few pails of water on it. Let us see that every one is out first; that's the main matter."

They joined a group of men and women, who were standing looking at the flames: they were the two women, the groom and gardener, and four or five men who had already come up from the village.

The gardener was speaking.

"It's no use to work at the pumps; there are only four or five pails. If it was only at one end we might prevent its spreading, but it's got hold all over."

"I can't make it out," the groom said. "One of the horses was sick, and I was down there giving him hot fomentations with my mate. I had been there perhaps an hour when I saw a light coming out of the drawing-room window, and I ran up shouting; and then I saw there was a light in the dining-room and library too. Then I ran round to the back of the house, and the housekeeper's room there was alight, too. I run in at the kitchen door and upstairs, and woke the gardeners and got them out. The place was so full of smoke, it was as much as we could do to get downstairs. Then we got a long ladder, and put it against Mrs. Wilson's window, and got her and the girl down. Then we came round this side, and I got up and broke a pane in Mr. Carne's window and shouted. I could not make him hear, so I broke another pane and unfastened the window and lifted it, and went in. I thought he must have been stifled in bed, for the smoke was as thick as possible, and I had to crawl to the bed. Well, master wasn't there. I felt about to see if he was on the floor, but I could find nothing of him; the door was open, and I expect he must have been woke up by the smoke, and went out to see what was the matter, and perhaps got choked by it. I know I was nearly choked myself by the time I got my head out of the window again."

"He may have got to the upper storey," Jacob Carey said. "We had best keep a look-out round the house, so as to be ready to put the ladder up at once if we see him. There is nothing else to do, is there, Mr. Armstrong? You are accustomed to all sorts of troubles, and may know best what we ought to do."

"I can't think of anything," Mr. Armstrong replied. "No, if he's not in his own room it seems hopeless to search for him. You see the flames have broken out from several windows of the first floor. My own idea is, from what you say as to the fire having spread into all the rooms on the ground floor when you discovered it, that the poor gentleman must have set fire to the house himself in half-a-dozen places, and as likely as not may have been suffocated almost at once."

"I shouldn't wonder if that was it," the smith said. "It's not natural that the fire should have spread all over the lower part of the house in such a short time. You know what we were saying this evening. It's just the sort of trick for a madman to play."