“Up here, Jack. In the front room.”
There was a faintness in the tone, however, which was far from re-assuring and Jack cried again:
“What’s all the shooting for, Dad? You all right?”
A hollow groan was his only answer. And at that Jack thrust aside Captain Murray, who stood between him and a door leading from the kitchen, into which they had emerged from the cellar stairway, into the body of the house, and darted ahead.
“After him, fellows,” said Captain Murray, setting the example. “That’s the way upstairs.”
Jack in the lead, the rout streamed through a large room bare of furnishings as had been the kitchen, and lighted only dimly by reason of the fact that latticed shutters barred the several windows. Out of this into a long hall leading to the front door, then a sharp turn to the left and up a boxed-in flight of stairs. Heavy boots beat a tattoo on the bare boards.
Filled with terrifying fears on account of his father, Jack was racing madly in the lead, with Captain Murray at his heels, followed by Bob and Frank, and the others streaming after. At the head of the stairway, they turned again to the left, entering a corridor which led toward the street front. On the left, above the dark stairway, was a hand rail; on the right a number of doors opened into rooms, into which those of the party who, unlike Jack and Captain Murray, had not before been over the ground, peered as they ran by. But the rooms were unfurnished, except for mattresses and crumpled coverlets seeming to cover every available inch of floor space; and they were unoccupied, too. The corridor ended at the open door of a larger room than the others which faced on the street, and into this dashed Jack, going straight, with a strangled cry, to the form of his father. Mr. Hampton lay on a greasy mattress, near the front wall, and beside an open window looking out upon the street. His face was white, and his eyes closed, and the left shoulder of his light-colored, summer coat was stained dark.
Jack had no eyes for anyone but his father, beside whom he knelt with a choking cry which caused the latter to open his eyes.
“They got away, Jack,” said Mr. Hampton, painfully. “But you’re safe, aren’t you? I was afraid—”
His voice dropped to an unintelligible murmur, and his eyelids fluttered shut again.