Grace Fuller was safe then, and everybody knew it. But somehow that crowd did not give a single cheer; in fact, every one seemed to have forgotten that she and Fischer were there, and all made a rush for Mallory.
Fischer fastened the rope inside the building, wrapped it about his wrist, took the unconscious figure in his one free arm, and slid swiftly down to safety, just in time to see the flames that threatened Mallory extinguished by the cadets. Grace Fuller was unconscious, so she knew nothing of this, but Fischer did, and he staggered over toward the gallant plebe.
“How is he?” he cried. “How is he? Don’t tell me he’s——”
Fischer hated to say the word, but as he stared at the motionless figure he feared that it was true, that Mallory had given his life for his friends.
A surgeon was at his side an instant later, bending over the prostrate form—Mallory was unconscious and nearly dead from exhaustion and pain alone. His legs were burned to a blister, his hands were a sight to make one sick. As to the fall, who could say? The surgeon shook his head sadly as he got up and called for a stretcher to carry the lad down to the hospital.
That incident once past the battalion turned its energies to extinguishing the flames. But they were listless and careless energies for some reason. There seemed to be something on the battalion’s mind.
A guilty conscience is a poor companion for any work. And the thought of Mallory and what he had done, and what they had done to him, gave the cadets a very guilty conscience indeed.
Those who had taken part in that beating were the most worried and unhappy of all, for they had done something they might never be able to atone for. They seemed to hear those words of Mallory’s—and they thought of how true they had come—“Some day I may have a chance to show you how much of a coward I am.”
They got the fire out entirely in an hour or two, and then sadly the corps marched back to the silent camp. There was a noticeable lack of satisfaction one might have expected to see after the weary task was so creditably performed. The thought of Mallory was a weight of lead upon the heart of every one. That plebe had suddenly become the one object of all the hopes and prayers of the corps.
Groups of silent lads gathered about the tents, conversing in low and subdued whispers when they said anything at all. The picture of Mallory’s figure clinging to the side of that burning house was before their eyes every moment. Fischer had told them the story of Mallory’s reasons for daring their wrath, and his news put the plebe’s action in quite a different light. It made the cadets yet more remorseful for their cruelty.