Chapter Twenty.
A Fiery Trial.
It was a terrible position, and for a few moments Hilary felt helpless to move.
That blue stream of fire came gurgling and fluttering beneath the door, spreading rapidly over the floor, filling the chapel with a ghastly glare; and the prisoner saw that in a few moments it would reach the straw.
Even in those exciting moments he fully comprehended the affair. He knew, as in a case he had once seen on shipboard, that this was spirit of extraordinary strength, and that the vapour would explode wherever it gathered, even while the surface of the stream was burning.
He did not stand still, though, to think, but with all the matter-of-fact, business habitude of one accustomed to a life of emergencies, he proceeded to drag the straw into the corner farthest away from the increasing flame.
The next minute he saw that this corner was the one nearest the window, and that if he had to take refuge there, and the flame extended to the straw, there would be a tremendous blaze almost beneath him.
Setting to work, he dragged it away into another corner, sweeping up the loose pieces as rapidly as he could, and even as he did so the fluttering blue-and-orange flames advanced steadily across the floor, cutting off his access to the window, and rapidly spreading now all over the place, for the passage had a gradual descent to the door, and nearly the whole of the spilt spirit came bubbling and streaming in.
It was a beautiful, although an appalling sight, for the surface of the spirit was all dancing tongues of fire—red, blue, and orange, mingled with tiny puffs of smoke and bright sparks as it consumed the fragments of straw that lay upon the stones.