Now pandemonium reigned. Crash on crash followed in rapid succession. It was as though the office had become the centre of attack for an overwhelming combination of forces. The walls and floor shivered under the terrific onslaught. The very building seemed to totter as though an earthquake were in progress. But at last the end came with a thunder upon the cupboard door, the panels were ripped like tinder, and something vast launched itself through the wrecked woodwork. It struck the imprisoned man in the chest, and in a moment he was pinned to the wall, gasping under ribs bending to the crushing weight which felt to be wringing the very life out of him.
A deadly quiet fell as suddenly as the turmoil had arisen, and his quick ears told him that the saws were still, and all work had ceased in the mill. But the pause was momentary. A second later a great shouting arose. Men's voices, loud and hoarse, reached him, and the rushing of heavy feet was significant of the disaster.
And he was helpless, a prisoner.
He tried to move. His agony was appalling. His ribs felt to be on the verge of cracking under the enormous weight that held him. He raised his arms, but the pain of the effort made him gasp and drop them. Yet he knew he must escape from his prison. He knew that he was needed outside.
The shouting grew. It took a definite tone, and became a cry that none could mistake. Dave needed no repetition of it to convince him of the dread truth. The fire spectre loomed before his eyes, and horror nigh drove him to frenzy.
In his mind was conjured a picture—a ghastly picture, such as all his life he had dreaded and shut out of his thoughts. His brain suddenly seemed to grow too big for his head. It grew hot, and his temples hammered. A surge of blood rose with a rush through his great veins. His muscles strung tense, and his hands clenched upon the imprisoning beam. He no longer felt any pain from the crushing weight. He was incapable of feeling anything. It was a moment when mind and body were charged with a maddening force that no other time could command. With his elbows planted against the wall behind him, with his lungs filled with a deep whistling breath, he thrust at the beam with every ounce of his enormous strength put forth.
He knew all his imprisonment meant. Not to himself alone. Not to those shouting men outside. It was the mills. Hark! Fire! Fire! The cry was on every hand. The mills—his mills—were afire!
He struggled as never before in his life had he struggled. He struggled till the sweat poured from his temples, till his hands lacerated, till the veins of his neck stood out like straining ropes, till it seemed as though his lungs must burst. He was spurred by a blind fury, but the beam remained immovable.
Hark! The maddening cry filled the air. Fire! Fire! Fire! It was everywhere driving him, urging him, appealing. It rang in his brain with an exquisite torture. It gleamed at him in flaming letters out of the darkness. His mill!
Suddenly a cry broke from him as he realized the futility of his effort. It was literally wrung from him in the agony of his soul; nor was he aware that he had spoken.