“No, no,” said a voice behind her, and she felt herself moved gently aside. “Take the boy and carry him into the middle of the yard, and we will manage this.”
She obeyed unquestioningly, and saw Fitz strike a match, which shed a flickering light on the scene. Extinguishing the light carefully, he called to Mr Hardy to pull the bedstead back and turn it slightly, thus bringing it through the doorway without difficulty. They carried it out to the spot where Mabel was standing, and Fitz raced back immediately into the room, to return with an umbrella and all the rugs he could lay hands upon.
“Hold it over her head. We shall have torrents of rain in a minute or two!” he cried, as he went to the help of Mr Hardy, who was trying to lift Rahah away from the dangerous spot where she lay.
“Are there mines all round us?” asked Mabel in bewilderment, as they returned, just escaping the fall of another portion of the roof.
“Mines! This is an earthquake!” he called back, starting again to the relief of Mrs Hardy, of whose uncomfortable position her husband’s stammering and excited accents had only just made him aware.
“Where is the Baba Sahib?” cried a frantic voice, and Ismail Bakhsh crawled up, bruised and dishevelled; “and what of my Memsahib?”
“Safe, fool!” answered Rahah contemptuously, as she sat nursing her injured foot, “and no thanks to thee.”
“Peace, woman! Did not the verandah roof descend upon me as I sat beneath it, and did I not lie there senseless until I came to myself and fought my way out to help the Baba Sahib and his mother?”
“If you are able to move, Ismail Bakhsh, go and help the sahibs to dig out the Padri’s Mem,” said Georgia faintly, cutting short the squabble, and Ismail Bakhsh obeyed. Before very long the rescuers came back triumphant, in company with Anand Masih, who had refused to leave his mistress, even at her express command, and had succeeded before help came in removing a good deal of the weight that pressed upon her.
“Well, my dear, all’s well that ends well,” said Mrs Hardy, hobbling up and dropping stiffly on a rug beside Georgia. “Hurt? Oh, nonsense!” in response to the anxious inquiries showered upon her; “bruised and knocked about a little, but that’s all, and we ought to be very thankful that it’s no worse. If those roofs hadn’t been jerry-built, probably none of us would have escaped with our lives, but the beams were not solid enough, as I have often said. And now the worst is over, so we had better make ourselves as comfortable as we can here for the rest of the night.”