Then a fourth voice--even huskier than the other.
"Catch 'old! If some one don't catch 'old of the Baron I shall drop 'im. My God! this is a pretty sort of go!"
There was a pause, then the voice of the first speaker again.
"He do look bad, the Baron do--worse nor the Toff, and he don't seem too skittish!"
"Strikes me he ain't far off from a coffin and a six-foot 'ole. You wouldn't look lively if you'd had what he 'as. That there ---- brained 'im, and now he's been burned alive. I tell you what it is, we shall have to look slippy if we want to get ourselves well out of this. Them others will have to scorch--it's no good trying to get 'em out--no mortal creature could live down there--it'll only be a bit sooner, anyhow. The whole ---- place is like a ---- tinder-box. It'll all be afire in less than no time, and it'll make a bonfire as'll be seen over all the countryside; and if we was seen a-making tracks away from it, there might be questions asked, and we mightn't find that pretty!"
"Where's the ---- as done it all?"
"In there--that's where he is!"
"In there? Sure? My----! wouldn't I like to strip his skin from off his ---- carcase!"
"He'll have his skin stripped off from him without your doing nothing, don't you be afraid--and made crackling of! He'll never get outside of that--he'll soon be warm enough--burnt to a cinder, that's what he'll be!"
Suddenly there was a tumult of exclamations and of execrations, sound of the opening of a door, and of a general stampede. Then silence.