The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance

CHAPTER XIII.

ON THE ROOF

For a moment he and she stared at one another in mute stupefaction. She had prayed she might die that night, and now death had sought her. And yet-and yet-

To die alone was easy, would have been less than easy when she offered up the prayer; would have been easy now if he had not been present. But how was she to die within the view of him? How was she to go out of life while he stood by? No, no. Now was not the time to die. She could not, she would not, die now.

"Charlie! Charlie! can't you save me?" she cried, throwing out her arms towards him.

He could not hear her voice, but he saw the appealing arms. For a moment he felt as though he had received a heavy blow on the head. Then he uttered a loud shout that drew all eyes upon him, and lowering his head, darted through the crowd and across the road towards the house next the one on fire. Two policemen tried to stop him, but he pushed them aside with an oath.

He sprang into the hall of the house next door and dashed up the stairs. They were still removing the furniture from this house, and when he reached the second landing he found it blocked with a wardrobe four men were carrying down. He caught two balusters of the higher flight, and drawing himself up flung himself over the balustrade. Then he dashed on again. At last he reached the top of the house. He looked into one of the rooms. Some of the neighbours were taking down an iron bedstead. He seized one of the side-rails, and with a blow of it knocked out the sash of the front window.

He got out on the window-sill, carrying the iron bar with him. He rested the bar against the side of the window, and then for a moment seized the gutter-pipe and swung out of it. The gutter bore his weight without giving way in the least.

When he had ascertained that the gutter would bear him he took up the iron bar, and, laying it down in the gutter, pushed it towards the burning house.

Thus he was now standing on the window-sill next to the one at which he had seen Marion, and the iron bar, to which the cross laths of the bed had been attached, lay in the gutter overhead between him and the burning house.

Was she still standing at that window? or had the accursed flames- No, no; he must not even think of such a thing for a moment. It would unnerve him, and he had need of all his nerve and strength now if she was to be saved. So far all had gone well. It was not more than a minute and a half since he had seen her figure at the window. How long that minute and a half seemed to him! Keep cool! That was the great thing; keep cool!

All this rushed through his mind as he once more lifted himself up by the power of his hands and hung out of the gutter.

At that moment a fireman thrust his head through the bottom sash, and said:

"We've sent for another escape. What are you going to do? You can, if you are strong, go along the gutter to the window, but you can't bring her back that way."

"I am not going to try," said Cheyne.

"Then what are you going to do? You can't go along the roof, it's too steep."

"I can," said Cheyne.

"You cannot," said the fireman. "We've been looking at it, and we all agree it's too steep."

"I have no time to talk, but I'm going."

"It's as much as your life is worth, and I won't let you."

"By – if you touch me I'll impale you on the railings below!"

The fireman drew back, and, as he did, Cheyne let go the gutter and slipped off his boots. Then seizing the gutter once more, and standing at one side of the window-sill-the side farthest from the burning house-he pressed his stocking-feet against the brickwork of the embrasure of the window, and walked up until his left foot was at the top of the window. Thus his body was now higher at the feet than at the head.

He raised his left leg cautiously and caught the edge of the gutter with the foot. He raised the right leg and passed it over the left. Then he lifted his body up as high as he could by the hands until he got the elbow of his right arm into the gutter. He was able to keep himself in this position by pressing his right knee firmly against the wall.

The great danger of his present position was that the holdfasts securing the gutter might give way. If they did, he would have had no chance of life.

A moment he hung in this way, on the edge of the roof. Then, by a prodigious effort of his enormous strength he rolled himself in on the roof. There was a cheer from the crowd below. Not one of the firemen had believed he could do this.

His position was still one of extreme danger. The roof was too steep to allow of his walking upright on it, although in his stocking-feet. To prevent himself slipping down he kept one hand and one foot in the gutter. Now he thrust his right hand upward on the slates as far as he could, lifted up a slate, tore it off, and flung it over the roof. He did this to avoid any chance of its striking anyone in the street or the area, where three firemen were now busy rescuing their injured comrade. He tore off another slate, and threw it over in like way. Then he had something to lay hold of. Clutching the laths, he drew himself up by his right hand until his breast was on a level with the hole in the slates. Holding on with his left hand, he thrust his right down the gutter and took up the side rail of the bed, and, resting himself on the slates, keeping his toes in the gutter, he stretched himself upward to his full height, holding the iron rail in his right hand.

Again there came a cry of applause from the crowd below. All this Cheyne had done with amazing swiftness. From the moment he had burst through the crowd below, only two-and-an-half minutes had gone by. Yet to him it had seemed an age.

Now his progress was much slower than it had hitherto been, for in order not to start the holdfasts of the gutter, he was obliged to rest as much of his weight as possible on the slates. Thus he had to lie at full length on the slates, and in moving to the burning house had to shift his feet with great deliberation and caution along the gutter.

The people below watched in breathless excitement. At length he passed the boundary between the two houses. The houses were old, and the party-wall did not come through the roof. The smoke was dense, almost suffocating. He had to dodge his head this way and that to try and get a breath of air. At last the crowd shouted, "Far enough."

He paused, and, resting on his knees and toes, raised the iron bar high and brought it down with a mighty crash on the slates. They rose in a shower of fragments; and, when he could see, the laths were exposed in two or three places. Seizing hold of the laths he drew himself up, and, standing upon the laths, which gave him a firm foothold, he thrust the bar down-as one uses a pavior-until he had made a hole big enough to allow his body through.

Into this hole he dropped, and found himself in an unboarded cockloft over the room in which he had seen Marion. Between two of the joists he now thrust his bar. Already the smoke was thick in the cockloft, but when the hole was made in the ceiling the smoke rushed up in a dense column.

Not a moment was to be lost. Perhaps it was already too late.

He smashed down the ceiling, and in a few seconds had cleared a space large enough to allow his body to pass between the joists. He threw away the bar and dropped his legs through the hole and lowered himself until he hung at full length from the joists by his hands. Then he let go.

The room was so full of smoke he could not see anything distinctly. One thing was clear, Marion was no longer standing at the window. Six minutes had passed since he left the street-only six minutes! She was then standing at the window, but in those six minutes what might not have happened?

Meantime, the firemen had not been idle. They had got their comrade up out of the area, and were busy with a long rope. One of the men got upon the stump of the escape, and having secured the end of the rope to a hammer and coiled twenty or thirty yards of the rope in his left hand, he swung the hammer round his head three or four times, and then let go.

The hammer flew upward towards the roof next that of the burning house; the coil ran out of the man's left hand-the hammer disappeared over the roof. Another fireman now rushed into the house over which the line lay, and in a few seconds the rope was hauled a little from the back of the house. Then the fireman who had gone into the adjoining house came to a window on the top-floor, and cried out:

"Pull in!"

Just as this man cried "Pull in!" Cheyne saw, through the smoke, something lying on the ground near the window. He could feel, by his unshod feet, that the floor of the room was already hot; the smoke was stifling. Everything depended on the haste he made.

Under the hole in the ceiling he dashed a table, then on this he flung a chair. The roof of the room was low and he was a tall man, so that by standing on the chair he could reach the ceiling.

Then he seized the insensible form of the girl and mounted on the table, and from that to the chair. He was almost choked with smoke, and for a moment he felt as though he was about to faint. His shoulders were on a level with the ceiling.

Making a supreme effort, he pushed his burden upward through the opening and rested it on the joists above. Then he drew himself up until his feet came through, and he crouched in the cockloft.

It did not take him a moment to get from the cockloft to the roof. But how was he to get back. He had never thought of getting back until now. He looked down at the insensible girl. He had just been in time. He saw a flutter at her throat. The air had already begun to revive her.

Now the people below saw him, and shouted with relief and joy.

How was he to get back? It was utterly impossible for him to go as he had come. Awhile he rested on the edge of the hole. The smoke was increasing every moment. He looked in the face of the girl he loved more than all the world besides, he looked at the burning house, he looked down at the opposite side of the street, and then he turned his eyes straight in front of him and saw the white level light of dawn broadening in the east.

She was reviving, but for what fate? What a horrible thing to think of! What a maddening thing to fancy of even for a minute!

At that moment the people below shouted:

"The rope! the rope!"

He looked along the roof and saw the rope. It was now secured at the back of the next house, and held by one of the firemen in front. This man drew the rope as much as he dared in the direction of the burning house; but, owing to the flames issuing from the windows, he could not bring it across the house, hence it was twenty feet off from Cheyne. Those twenty feet made all the difference in the world. The whole distance to the point from which he had set out was not more than thirty feet. It would have been as difficult for him to have got ten as thirty feet.

There was no foothold, no handhold, and the gutter would not do-would not bear the whole weight of himself, not to allow for her weight at all. For now, if he were to try and regain the roof of the next house, he would have to employ his arms with her, and could not take any of his weight off the gutter by leaning on his hands or chest.

The smoke coming up the hole grew more and more dense. Fortunately there was no wind, and the smoke rose in a solid column through the roof, and the two were little annoyed by it.

That rope seemed the only chance of delivery, for in less than another ten minutes the flames would be bursting through that hole, and all would be over with them. How could he reach that rope?

Marion had not yet fully revived, but he could see she was breathing more freely.

At last a thought struck him. He lay down, thrust his arm and shoulder into the cockloft, and brought up the iron bar. Then, having carefully placed the unconscious girl at his feet, he raised the bar and brought it down with tremendous violence on the slates in the direction of the rope. A shower of splinters rose into the air and fell with a rattle on the roof. A huge gash appeared on the roof. Again Cheyne brought down the bar with great force, and a space a foot wide was cleared of slates and showed the naked laths. Then he battered down the laths close at hand as far as the bar would reach. Having thrust the bar through the laths, as far as he had broken, he looked once more at Marion.

Her eyes were open. She was perfectly conscious, but very weak.

"May," he said, "have courage. Have courage, my girl, and try and do what I tell you."

"Oh, God forgive me, Charlie; God forgive me for all this!"

"Hush, child, hush! There is not a moment to lose. Now do what I tell you. On no account look down into the street. Sit here. Lean upwards on the slates, and hold on by this rafter with both your hands. Or stay, better lean forward and clasp the rafter with both arms. Do not stir now, and I will not be a moment."

Then he crept on to the next rafter and clove in the lath and plaster there, and then to the next, and the next, and so on, until at last, in an incredibly short space of time, he had worked his way to where the rope stretched across the roof.

When he reached it another cheer burst from the crowd below. Balancing himself with the heavy iron bar he crawled back along the rafter to where Marion lay.

But up through that hole the smoke had been rushing with increasing volume, and when Cheyne touched the young girl he found she had fainted again.

He raised her up and drew her out of the immediate up-draught of the smoke. She did not revive at once, but he saw the weakness which had again overtaken her was of a trifling nature. He placed her above him on the slates, and then drew up some of the slack of the rope. He wound the rope round his body, so that it stretched taut from the coping of the roof to his waist.

Then placing her on his shoulder and pressing her securely to him with his left arm, he caught the rope in both his hands, and leaning slightly backwards, resting the weight of his body partly on the rope and partly on his feet, took a few steps slowly and carefully up the slates towards the coping.

The pure white light of dawn was on his back, and when for a moment he stood still, he looked, against the sun, like a bronze statue of Hercules triumphant.

He took four or five steps to the left, and was then off the roof of the burning house, from which slender shafts of flame, almost invisible in the strong light, were now darting through the dense column of smoke.

Another cheer burst from the crowd when they saw he was at last clear of the burning house. But still he was in a position of no small difficulty. He had left his bar behind.

He was on a roof upon which he could not stand without support, and he had the fainting girl in his arms. He could stop there as long as he liked by making the rope fast, but the fire might spread.

At that moment another shout rose from the people. "The escape! the escape!" they cried, and looking up the street he saw a second escape approaching.

In a few minutes it was rolled into position, ladders were shot up, and backing gradually by aid of the rope, he reached the ladder and was soon on firm ground.

Marion had again opened her eyes.

"A cab!" he cried.

One was on the spot in a short time.

"I'll take charge of this lady-she is a friend of mine," said Cheyne, as he helped her in. To the driver he said: "Knightsbridge Road, and then I'll show you." He got in, and the cab drove away.

CHAPTER XIV.

A SILENT DRIVE

Neither said anything. Both were exhausted. Both were experiencing collapse after the danger and anxieties of the past two days-of the past hour. He put his arm round her to support her, and she leaned on him unconscious, or almost unconscious, that it was really he.

Cheyne now felt for the first time that he was covered with bruises and cuts from slates and nails. Of course, when he came to think of it, nothing but a miracle could have saved him injury in the ordeal through which he had just come. He knew that his clothes were all in tatters. His left leg and right arm felt particularly cold and uncomfortable, with here and there a very slight sense of pain. The pain was not worth talking about, but the cold uncomfortable sensation was new and very sickening.

He did not think of May or of the rescue he had just made. He was feeling, more than thinking. He allowed his mind to drift, and took no heed of the course it followed; and by a circumstance for which he feebly endeavoured to account as the cab rattled along, he found his mind more occupied with a curious observation of his own physical condition, that with any thought of May or recent events. This was very strange, and perplexed him in a hazy sort of way, as one is perplexed on waking in a dark strange room, and being unable to recollect in what relation the bed stands to the door or the door to the window.

Why could not he take his mind off his left leg and his right arm, when he had just not only recovered his lost darling, whom he had been two days seeking, but whom he had only just delivered from imminent risk of death? It was strange, very strange.

He had no desire to talk, no desire to utter a word. May was sitting there beside him, and he was taking her home to her aunt's house, and yet he felt no inclination to talk. What he should like most of all would be to go to bed and get covered up well, and fall fast asleep. By Jove, he was falling fast asleep as it was! What an extraordinary thing he should feel drowsy now he had recovered May, and all was so satisfactorily settled!

Asleep! Yes, he was falling asleep! What a wonderful thing! No doubt it was owing to the two sleepless nights he had spent. But his leg and arm did feel very dreary.

What! could he not keep his eyes open? This was incredible! Swimming? – he thought he had done with swimming. And yet here he was once more swimming out to that wreck with the line! What was the good of his going out again to that wreck when all the men but the one he had saved were drowned? What earthly good could come of carrying a line out to a ship on which there was not a living soul? Absurd as it was, he should not so much mind it only for his arm and leg. They had got entangled in the rope, and he could hardly support himself in the water. They were dragging him down.

May was also silent, although she never felt less sleepy in all her life. She was scared, and could not gather her thoughts. The past two days were like a dream to her, and she felt she should not be fully awake until she had got back to Tenby Terrace, and seen the old place and kissed her kind old aunt. She had run away and hidden herself, and Charlie had come in search of her and had found her, and she was going back with him. That was quite right and natural, and she was glad that horrible time was over-a time of dreaming or waking. Yes, she was going back once more to her old home with Charlie. She had no longer any doubt that it was wrong of her to have left home. She ought to have remained there and resisted Charlie. It was weak and cowardly of her to run away; and instead of that helping to make Charlie forget her, it would of course make him only more determined not to give her up. If she had stayed at home and seen him every day, and treated him merely as a friend when he called, he would have been much more swiftly cured of his love for her than by her flying and hiding herself from him.

What a wonder Charlie did not speak! He had not uttered a word since they had got into the cab, and now they were crossing the river.

Yes, this was Charlie's arm round her, and it would never be round her again. Never. Even now it was not round her in the old way. It was that of a supporter, a protector, not a lover. How could he continue to love her after her last act? If he had run away from her, would she care for him again?.. Ah, that would be a different thing. Of course she would forgive him. Who could, help forgiving Charlie anything? But then it was quite a different thing. He had everything in his favour, she nothing; and she had thrown him up, run away from him, and told him she would never marry him or meet him again as a lover. No. It was impossible to make any comparison between the two cases, and no doubt Charlie had thought over the whole thing, and came to the same conclusion as she.

That was lucky. It was lucky for her that Charlie had finally abandoned all thought of looking at her in the old way. She had tried to break away from her old home, and she had met cruel difficulties and rebuffs. She would never have left her aunt but that she thought doing so would be of advantage to him. And it had been of advantage to him. Had it not changed him from the warm but unwise lover into merely the protector and friend? Nothing could have been more efficacious than the plan she had adopted. If he had not found her that night, the chances are his love of her would have gone on as of old, and if she had been a whole fortnight from home his love of her might have increased, to fade away as the time of her absence grew longer. But here was she now, who had run away only two days ago, who only two days ago had told him she would never know him as a suitor again, brought back from her hiding and placed face to face with him. All his love must have left him. What could be plainer? What could be more simple? They were now driving through Piccadilly, and he had not said a word.