Chapter Twenty Nine.
A fiery Trial.
It needed no explanation. Dick grasped in an instant, as he sprang to his feet, that the whole roof of the marquee had become filled with escaped gas, and that at last this had exploded, bursting up the canvas, which had fallen back with the chandeliers, drapery, flags, decorations, and broken poles on the gaily-dressed crowd within, burying them helplessly.
The shrieks and cries increased as Dick tore off back along the side of the fallen tent, heedless of the heaving and sinking of the canvas and the figures struggling out beneath the edges. For he had but one thought: to get in by the way he had come and try and help those he knew—Lacey and the tall, fair girl who had been seated there a few minutes before.
As he reached the mess-room end the smothered cries and shrieks were horrible; but people were struggling out fast now, and officers in uniform could be seen dragging ladies from beneath the canvas. In other places, knives were being plunged through and slits made from within, out of which hands appeared, and, the holes being enlarged, people were rapidly dragged out by the servants and soldiers who came hurrying up from the barrack yard and by those who had been outside listening.
And all the time, amidst the hubbub of cries, appeals, and groans, the canvas kept on heaving where the frightened, suffocating people beneath were struggling together now and fighting vainly to escape.
Suddenly one of the bandsmen put his cornet to his lips and blew a familiar call, with the result that a number of the soldiers fell into line. One of the escaped officers began to give short, sharp, decisive orders, and then, leading and directing the men, an attack was made upon the canvas ropes. Stakes were torn up, and great openings made, out of which numbers escaped—the ladies with their gay ball habiliments torn, their hair dishevelled, many of them to fall fainting and be borne into the ball-room by the side entrance.
These efforts were soon being continued on all sides, the military discipline displaying itself more and more as the officers got free and then kept back the gathering crowd and those who made frantic efforts to help, but only hindered, the workers. The doctors were established in the tea-room, which was turned into a hospital, and the insensible and injured were rapidly borne in to them, while the cooler people who kept their heads, assisted.
It was quite time that the aid was effectual, for now a fresh horror was making itself evident. The explosion had resulted in darkness; but in two places smoke was arising, and one of these spots was where the canvas and poles lay thickest, and from whence Dick, who worked frantically, had dragged over a dozen people out, and helped to bear others who lay insensible, suffocated by those who had fallen and crushed them down.
Again and again he had plunged in under the canvas, feeling in the darkness amidst entangled chairs, portions of the table, with the chaos of broken china, glass, and cutlery, hoping that he was exactly in the place where Miss Deane must be, but always disappointed and helping to carry out someone else.