University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
PETER, FANNY, AND THE PREACHER.

“Peter, Peter! You've got yerself into a
scrape,” was the remark of the giant as he
tried the door: “Preacher and gal both gone,
and here you air.”

Peter flung himself against the door, kicked
its panels with all his might, and wrenched the
knob until the sinews started like whip-cords
on his iron wrist.

All his efforts however were fruitless. Ten
minutes elapsed while he was occupied in this
manner.

“What's become of Charley? If he should
happen to meet the Preacher a-goin' down
stairs! The reptyle! If I only had a club
I'd send them panels into splinters in a minnit.
Hello! I've an idea. You're stupid Peter,
not to think of it afore.”

Drawing a pistol from his pocket, he levelled
it deliberately at the lock of the door. His
hand was on the trigger, when the key turned
in the lock again and the door sprung open.

At the same instant the room was filled by
a thick cloud of suffocating smoke, which
blinded the sight of the giant and forced him
to pant for breath.

“Save yourself! Save yourself!” cried a
voice — “The house is on fire.”

Through the cloud Peter beheld the form of
the Preacher, with the young girl lying pale
and insensible upon his breast.

And from the entry, through the opened
doorway the smoke continued to roll, in a
thick and stifling cloud. The light was suddenly
darkened: that dense mass of smoke,
illumined by a lurid and hazy light, wrapped
the giant, the girl, and the Preacher, in its
folds.

“To the window,” cried Peter, stumbling
forward, “Let's have a breath o' fresh air.”

“The windows are nailed shut,” he heard
the voice of the Preacher in reply: “Our only
hope of escape is —” his voice was broken,
as if in the effort to get breath — “is by the
roof.”

Plunging about in the darkness, Peter encountered
the door-way, and with a sudden
bound, endeavoured to pass from the threshold
to the head of the stairs. But the smoke drove
him back. He was blinded and stifled by the
dense cloud. Struggling through its folds, he
once more found himself in the room, and his
extended hand encountered the hand of the
Preacher.

“You cuss you, don't you know that you'll

kill that gal, unless you git the winder open?”
he muttered, as he gave the Preacher's hand a
wrench, which made him howl with pain —
“Wait a minnit! I'll burst the winder open
if I have to ram yer head through the sash!”

He plunged forward through the gloom, and
fell over the Preacher's trunk, at the same moment
crushing the lamp with his outstretched
hand.

“Here we air,” he cried, and raising the
trunk with both arms, dashed it at random
through the darkness. It chanced to encounter
the window, and a sound of crashing glass
announced that his effort was in part successful.

“I am dying,” moaned a faint voice, which
Peter scarcely recognized for the voice of the
Preacher — “For God's sake, help! help!
help!”

Peter felt the shutters, in the darkness. Felt
the bolts and bars, which held them close and
fast. Again he raised the trunk and hurled it
forward, with all the strength of his arms. The
shutters started — another blow — they flew
open — and Peter starting forward, thrust his
head from the window, and at the same instant
caught a glimpse of the day-break sky, and inhaled
one deep breath of pure air.

A strange sight it was to see his red face
peeping from the window amid a cloud of thick
and inky smoke.

At a glance, Peter surveyed the street beneath,
and as he looked he saw the burly form
of Stewel Pydgeon passing down the marble
steps, in the act of emerging from the house,
while Stewel's hoarse voice awoke the echoes
of the night, with “Fi-er! Fi-er! Fi-er!”

But no time was to be lost. Peter turned
from the window, and dragged the Preacher
from the darkness to the fresh air. In the
Preacher's arms lay Fanny, pale and beautiful
in her fantastic attire, her face resting on his
breast, while her hair streamed over his arms.

“Don't kill me — don't —” muttered the
Preacher, as in a half swooning state he projected
his face from the open window — “I
really didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You're a purty magician, you are,” gruffly
responded Peter. “You can turn a live man
into a corpse, but you can't put out a house,
when it's a-fire. But let's have a-hold o' th'
gal — don't you see she's dyin'?”

Lifting the unconscious girl from the arms
of the Preacher, Peter grasped her firmly in
his stalwart hands, and held her face toward
the pure air, while the smoke streamed in
a thick cloud, through the aperture of the
window.

The Preacher meanwhile moaned pitifully
— “Why don't they fetch the engines? Don't
they know that we'll be burned alive?”

“How'd the house get a-fire?” growled
Peter, still endeavoring to recover the unconscious
girl.

“Went down stairs — into second story —
was about to light a lamp — smelt fire —
opened the door, and was stifled by the smoke
— got up stairs with the girl, and managed to
find the door of this room.”

The Preacher spoke with difficulty, his
language vague and almost incoherent, while
projecting his neck to its utmost capability, he
rested his hands upon the window frame, and
endeavored to inhale one long deep breath of
fresh air.

“Could somebody have turned on the gas
and set it a-fire?” muttered Peter, as he shook
the form of the girl, in the effort to restore her
to consciousness: “But I guess it's been
burnin' down stairs, this hour and more, for I
smelt smoke when I first came in.”

The wind without, blowing fresh and strong,
for a moment drove back the smoke into the
house. Our friends by the window experienced
a sudden relief, and Peter with great satisfaction
saw Fanny unclose her dark eyes, as
he grasped her in his arms.

“Why don't the engines come?” groaned
the Preacher, as he turned his face, pale and
distracted with affright, toward the giant.
“Hark! D'ye hear that? The State House
Bell! And that! God bless us, the engines are
coming!”

His voice fairly shrieked with the violence
of his joy. And at this moment, while Fanny
gazed around with a vacant glance, there came
a sound from the depths of the mansion, which
penetrated the Preacher's heart, like the echo
of his death-knell.

It was the low, deep roaring sound of a vast
body of flame, shut up within thick walls.

“The house is burnin' away beneath us,”
exclaimed Peter.

“What is the matter? Where are we?”

whispered Fanny, as she turned her gaze from
the frightened visage of the Preacher, to the
bluff, but imperturbable face of the giant.

“We are parficly safe my dear. Just stick
your head out o' the winder, and get as many
mouth-fulls o' the fresh air as possible.”

“They are coming, they are coming!”
shouted the Preacher, as the street below, was
suddenly illumined with a red glare of torch-light,
while the air echoed merrily with the sound
of the engine bells. “Don't you see them?
They are fixing the hose to the fire-plugs—
there! there!”

The street echoed to the tramp of busy feet.
Crowds of men, half clad, hurried to and fro,
by the torch-light glare. The brass ornaments
of an engine, flashed back the light, as it was
hurled along, by the impulse of an hundred
manly arms. The street so lately still as the
grave, was now all light, confusion and uproar.

“Quick! Quick!” shouted the Preacher, as
he stretched forth his arms from the window:
“Don't you see that we're burnin' to death:
Hall-oo! Murder!”

“I see him!” cried Fanny, as far below
among the busy crowd, she saw a half-naked
form reddened by the torch-light: “It is
Ralph!”

“Look here you cuss, is there anybody else
in the house?” and Peter shook the Preacher
roughly by the arm.

“Don't trouble me! All my books and papers,
all my clothes will be turned into cinders!
Why don't they bring a ladder?
Hall-oo!”

But Peter was not thus to be denied.
Clenching the Preacher with his vice-like
grasp, he repeated his question, with a slight
addition in the way of rhetoric:

“Anybody else in this house? Give us
an answer, or out you go from this winder,
by —!”

“There's a man in the entry,” gasped the
Preacher: “I stumbled over him as I came
along.”

“Take the gal, you cowardly vagabon',”
cried Peter, and ere the Preacher could manifest
his astonishment by an ejaculation, the
giant had disappeared.

He had plunged once more into the cloud
of smoke.

Our history now returns to Brother Caleb
and the Converted Monk. They stood at the
door of the Iron Room, at least fifteen minutes
before the Preacher was driven back to his
“Study,” by the fire and smoke.