My chief sensation was one of exultation that Tempest should risk his life for me. It meant that I had won him back in spite of myself. Then when I recalled the frightful blaze and noise of that night, I began to realise what my rescue must have meant to any one. No one but a fellow utterly scornful of danger, and utterly determined to save a life in peril at all cost, could have ventured into that place. He would have done it for any one, I knew; but to come deliberately after me, who had ruined his chances last term, and whom he despised as a pilferer and a sneak—this was an act of heroism which it baffled me to contemplate, and in the contemplation of which consequently I succumbed once more to sleep and forgot everything.
As I slowly got better (and, after all, I was not much damaged, as soon as I had got over the effects of the suffocation and terror of that awful night) I heard more about the fire. Permission was given me to see one friend a day for ten minutes at a time, and the reader may imagine the wild excitement of those ten minutes.
I naturally called for Dicky Brown as my first man. He came, looking rather scared, and was evidently relieved to find I was something better than a mass of burns, and able to do my share in the conversation.
“It was a close shave for you, I can tell you,” he said. “All the other fellows hopped out long before the fire got bad, and no one fancied you weren’t out too. You must have been sleeping jolly sound. All of a sudden one of your lot yelled out that you were missing. It was so hot then the fellows were all standing back, but old Tempest, almost before the chap had shouted, nipped into the middle of it, and made a dash for your cubicle. My word! I wish I’d been there to see it! You were as good as done for when he collared you and hauled you out. He fell with you half-way down the stairs, but Sharpe and Pridgin and one or two others caught him and fished him out with you over his shoulder. He swears he’s not damaged, but he’s got his hand in a sling. I say, old chap, it’s no use blubbing; it’s all right how.”
“I wasn’t blubbing,” said I. “When you’ve got a cold in your head your eyes water sometimes, don’t they?”
“Rather, buckets,” said the magnanimous Dicky.
Langrish was my next interviewer; and his account as an eye-witness was graphic, and not calculated entirely to cure my “cold in the head.”
“You see, it’s this way,” said he. “Jarman was smoking in Sharpe’s room, and chucked his cigar into the waste-paper basket or somewhere by mistake, and while he and Sharpe toddled across the quad, the thing flared up and went up the curtains, and when old Sharpe came back the whole place was in a blaze. I twigged it pretty sharp, and so did Trim, and there was a regular stampede. No one ever supposed you’d go snoring all through it. Crofter and Wales were first outside, looking as white as milk. Bless you, it was such a rush and shindy, no one could see anybody. Of course we made sure you were all serene. Think of you sleeping through it!”
“I was in the end cubicle, you see,” said I.
“For all that, you might have stuck your head out to see what the fun was about,” said Langrish, in rather an aggrieved tone. “Sharpe turned up presently, with his face all grimy with smoke, and yelled, ‘Is every one here?’ ‘Yes,’ said Crofter—silly ass, how could he tell? Then Coxhead said to me, ‘Where’s Sarah got to?’ That made me look round, and I can tell you I was pretty sick when I couldn’t see you. Just fancy a chap sleeping away through it all! Why, the ant and the sluggard,” said Langrish, getting a little mixed in his proverbs, “weren’t in it with you. So I yelled ‘Sarah!’ with all my might. You should have seen the chaps sit up when they heard your name. Then old Tempest, with his mouth shut and looking middling pasty about the face, broke through the scrimmage and sent us right and left, and made a regular header into the place. Sharpe yelled to him to come back; some tried to yell, but couldn’t for lumps in their throats, and we all closed up. I can tell you it was a hot place. The smoke rolled out and got in our eyes, and the wood and stuff cracked and blazed, and sounded like the waves at Dover. We never expected to see him or you come back. The stairs were going to bits as fast as they could, and great bits of burning wood were tumbling off the roof. Then the smoke shifted somehow, and we heard Sharpe yell, ‘Heavens!’ Then there was a dull row like something tumbling, and Pridgin and Sharpe dashed in. We got kept back, or we’d have given you a leg-up too. Then you strolled in, fast asleep still—I never saw such a snoozer!—on Tempest’s arm. He was pretty well done, and couldn’t have pulled it off if Sharpe and Pridgin hadn’t hiked him out. Even then he couldn’t stand. So I hope you’re jolly well pleased with yourself. I hope it will be a lesson to you, young Sarah, to keep one eye open while you’re asleep. We were jolly glad you got canted out, though you are a bit of a mule. But it would have been rough on you to miss the Sports. They say Tempest’s burned his hand pretty bad, but he means to have a shot at the Mile. I say, Redwood was asking after you. Jarman’s jolly sick that it was his fault about the fire. He’s been quite civil, and been to ask about you every day. Look sharp and get right, I say, or it’ll rot the Sports if you don’t. Hullo, there comes your mater. Ta, ta, old hoss. It’s rather ripping you scraped through all right.”