He stopped speaking, and reeled and nearly fell to the earth, for he had received a blow from a falling beam; but he recovered himself sufficiently to point towards the house in an appealing way that no one understood.
“Halt there!” cried Sir Mark, who now rose to his feet, from where he had been thrown, “follow me some of you, quick, before it is too late.”
He might well add these last words, for, as the smoke rose like a heavy pall above the ruined house, it could be seen that, with the exception of a couple of the gables near where they stood, the place was shattered and nearly razed to the ground. There was a huge hole here, another cavernous rent there, and, piled above them, beams and rafters, blackened, smoking, and dotted with glowing embers, which began to sparkle as the portion of the house now standing burned furiously.
There was no need for light, for wood had entered largely into the construction of the building, and the powder seemed to have prepared everything to burn. With a rush great tongues of fire leaped from the embayment of the fine old parlour, whose diamond panes flew crackling out, while the lead in which they were set trickled down in a silvery stream. The whole of the parlour glowed in a few seconds like a furnace, and directly after the fire sprang forth from the two rooms above, and then again from the little window in the pointed gable, which was soon being licked from gutter to the copper vane on its summit by the orange and golden flames.
The rooms on either side rapidly followed, and soon the two gables that had remained after the explosion seemed wrapped in fire, which lit up the unscathed trees, and turned the lake as if into a pool of blood.
As Sir Mark sprang forward, a dozen men ran to his side—Gil’s men, every one of them, for his own stood aloof; but as they went close up a rush of flame and smoke drove them back, scathing and scorching them so that it was impossible to face it.
“A ladder—a ladder—fetch a ladder!” cried Sir Mark.
The words were hardly uttered, before a couple of men picked up that which Wat Kilby had used as a weapon, and to which he still tightly clung, as he lay at some little distance, where he had been cast.
This was dragged from him, and a couple of men reared it, by Sir Mark’s directions, against the burning casement of Mace’s room.
Seizing the rounds Sir Mark climbed up, and reached the room, now all aglow, but as he felt the scorching flames, which were already burning the top of the short ladder, he rapidly descended and stood wringing his hands, while Gil’s men seized poles, fetched buckets from a shed, and began to obtain water from the race.