Chapter XXIII.
Edwin Brothertoft came galloping up to the flames. Had he won this race, with a life for its prize?
The maddened mare tore forward, as if she would leap in among the loud riot there.
Fire everywhere! A mob of arrogant, roaring, frenzied flames possessed the cellar and the ground-floor. Each window, so long a peaceful entrance for sunbeams, now glowed with light within, or thrust out great cruel blades of fire, striking at darkness. Fire sheathed the base of the turret. Agile flames were climbing up its sides, and little playful flashes seized the creepers that overhung Lucy’s window, and, clinging to these, peered in through the panes, looking for such diet as they craved.
The husband turned the corner of the house, and galloped up to the window, — that window where an hour ago he had stood gazing at the proud, hateful face of the woman he loved so bitterly.
The white horse and its rider looked in at the window. And this is what the one quick, comprehensive glance of horror showed them, as a draught of air dragged the smoke away.
Opposite, on the wall, the two heads of the picture were just yielding to the flames around them. Little buds of flame were sprouting through the floor, little tendrils wreathing the doors, and drawing a closer circle about the figure at their centre. There she sat, as if this scene was prepared to illuminate her beauty. A gush of air lifted the smoke like a curtain, and there she was sitting, her black hair towering above her pale forehead, her white arms bound to the chair, and the red light of her diamond resting upon her white bosom.
The smoke had half suffocated her. But she was revived by the sudden flood of air, as a burned door gave way. She turned her head toward the window, — did her spirit tell her that the heart she had wounded was there? She lifted her feeble head as her husband dashed forward, and it seemed to him that, amid all the snarling and roaring of the flames, he could hear her moan, “Help, Edwin! Help!”
The bulbs of flame through the floor shot up and grew rank, the wreaths of flame reached out and spread fast as the beautiful tendrils of a magic vine, the smoke drifted together again, and hid the room and the figure sitting there. Over the carpet of flame, through the bower of flame, where long streamers redder than autumn hung and climbed, through the thick, blinding, suffocating, baffling smoke, Edwin Brothertoft sprang in to save his wife.
God help him, for his love is strong!
By this time, from the Tartar frigate and her consorts, boats’-crews were making for the burning house. They hoped to handle and furl the flames, as they would a flapping maintopsail in a gale. By this time the Manor people were also hurrying up, with neighborly intent to fling looking-glasses and crockery from the windows, and save them.
The Tartars were exhilarated by the splendid spectacle of fire in revolt. It was indeed a wild and passionate scene. From every window fingers of flame beckoned the world to behold it. And now on Lucy’s turret Fire had hoisted its banner, as in a castle the flag goes up when the master comes to hold holiday.
The sailors gained the foot of the lawn. This pageant burst upon them. They sprang forward with a hurrah. Suddenly the foremost, paused and huddled together. What is it?
A dark figure, bearing some heavy burden, appeared at the only window of the front where the flames were not overflowing in full streams and fountaining upward.
The figure came fighting forward. Fire shouted, and clutched at it. Smoke poured around, to bewilder it. The figure — a man’s form — staggered and fell. Inward or outward — inward into that fiery furnace, or outward toward the quiet, frosty air of night — the sailors could not see.
They rushed on more eagerly, but this time without the cheer.
Only the bravest, with Commodore Hotham himself at their head, dared face the flames, and touch the scorching heat to seek for that escaping figure they had seen.
They found him lying without, under the great window, — a man, and in his arms a burned and blackened thing. It might be, they thought, a woman.
They carried them away where the air was cool, and the crisp frost was unmelted on the grass. The man breathed, and moaned. No one knew his face, masked with black smoke.
With the neighbors, Mrs. Dewitt now came running up, and joined the group.
“See!” said she, with a shudder. “This was my mistress. She always wore this diamond on her neck in the evening. She is dead. No? she breathes!”