There was a yelp, a swiiiiiish of rushing water, a pandemonium of feminine shrieks, a tremendous clatter of metal and crockery, as bath caught pail, and pail overset jug to add to the torrent that rushed down the staircase like a flood. Mr. Moggridge had stumbled against the big bath!
The avalanche caught the Moggridges in the rear, shriek followed agonised shriek, as the cold water struck the slightly clad bodies, the shrieks crystallised into yells of anguish as the baths, jugs and bowls came thundering after the water. It seemed the object of animate and inanimate alike to get to the ground floor first. At each landing there was a momentary pause, just as a wave will poise itself before crashing forward, then more crashes and shrieks and groans. All had lost their foothold, and were inextricably mixed up with baths and bits of crockery. At last the torrent reached the hall, where it lay gasping and choking, wondering if this were death or the after punishment.
"My God!" shrieked Mr. Moggridge. "Gas!"
He had forgotten his mask.
He struggled to rise, but the cook and half a foot-bath were firmly fixed upon his person. He could merely lie and sniff—and pray.
The air was foul with an acrid smell that seemed to have permeated everything. To the Moggridges, heaped on the cold hall-tiles, saturated and bruised, it carried a more conclusive proof of danger than the buffeting received in the dash downstairs. It was Gas! Gas!! Gas!!! They would be ruined for life, even if they escaped death.
Above the wails of the Moggridges and their retainers could be heard explosion after explosion from without. Policemen's whistles were singing their raucous, terrifying note. A female voice was heard laughing and sobbing wildly—the cook was in hysterics, whilst at last from an inextricable heap of human limbs and bodies rose the courageous voice of Mr. Moggridge.
"Keep cool, keep calm," he besought. "You are quite safe here. You've got your gas masks. We——"
He was interrupted by a heavy and imperious pounding upon the knocker, and a continuous sounding of the spring bell. A disc of light could be seen through the stained-glass windows of the hall. From the shivering heap there was no movement to open the door, nothing but cries and sobs and moans. The pounding continued, punctuated by occasional explosions from without. It was Alan who at last crept out of the corner from which he had watched the avalanche of his family and its servitors, and went to the door, unbolting it and admitting what appeared to be two rays of light. They ferreted about until they fell on the heap of Moggridges.
Alan's first thought had been to turn on the electric light at the meter. He now switched on the hall lights, discovering two policemen and two special constables, who in turn discovered Mr. Moggridge. He had wriggled into a sitting posture, where he remained grasping the dinner gong, as Nero might have grasped his instrument when disaster overtook Rome, surrounded and held down by his progeny.