CHAPTER XVII. THE FIRE
It was nearly midnight when the boys came over the hill, and thehalf-moon was just sinking out of sight. They strolled down past thehotel, whistling a college tune in chorus. The hotel stood out, a big,black, indefinite object in the enveloping darkness, for the lights hadbeen out for nearly two hours, and the guests were supposed to be allabed.
"Hulloa!" exclaimed Henry Burns, pointing to a faint gleam that shonefrom a basement window. "John Carr has forgotten to put out his lamps inthe billiard-room. Old Witham will give him fits when he finds themburning in the morning. Wait a moment, and I'll just slip in through thiswindow and put them out for him. If the colonel should find them, just aslikely as not he would discharge John for wasting five cents' worth ofoil."
So saying, Henry Burns, with the best of intentions, shoved up the sashand crawled into the billiard-room in the basement.
The boys stood around the window, waiting for him to return, but one andall thrust their heads into the open window as Henry Burns suddenly gavea whistle of surprise.
"Say, fellows," he called, turning the lights up stronger instead ofextinguishing them. "Look what John Carr's done. He's left all the ballsand cues out, instead of locking them up. Wouldn't the colonel befurious? I'll tell you what we'll do. Old Witham always drives us out ofthe billiard-room, so we'll just stop and play one game now and I'll makeit all right with John Carr. He wouldn't care, and he will be glad enoughto have things put to rights, so Witham won't find them out in themorning."
George Warren, as the eldest of the brothers, demurred at first. "We'vebeen up to enough pranks this summer," he said, "and we don't want to getinto any more trouble."
"But we're not going to do any harm," persisted Henry Burns. "We'll onlyplay one game, just for the lark of playing at this time of night, and toget ahead of old Witham; and then we'll put everything away shipshape andput out the lights, and no harm done."
It did not take much argument to influence them; and in a moment theywere all inside, each equipped with a cue, and engaged in the forbiddengame. The time passed faster than they knew, and one o'clock found themthere still.
But, late as it was, a most unusual hour for any Southport dweller to beastir and abroad, there were at least three individuals who were not abedand asleep; and with these three we shall have to do in turn.
It so happened on this morning that Squire Brackett had importantbusiness that took him across to Cape Revere, on the mainland; and, as nosteamer was due to run across till afternoon, and he must be there in themorning, he had arranged to sail over, taking advantage of the ebb-tide,which served strongest shortly after midnight. He was sleepy and surly ashe came down the road, but paused a moment in his haste as he caught thegleam of light and heard the sound of subdued voices from the half-openedbasement window.
Squire Brackett stole up softly and peered inside.
"Aha!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "So that's the way the youngrascals treat Colonel Witham, is it? I'll just see about that in themorning. I fancy Colonel Witham will have something to say about thisbreaking and entering. I'd call him down now and trap them at their game,if it wasn't that I'd lose a tide and a twenty-dollar bargain by it."
And the squire tiptoed craftily away, chuckling maliciously to himself atthe thought of how he would aid in punishing the boys on the morrow.
The second man of the three who were to figure in the night's adventurehad set out some two hours ago from afar down the island on the obscurewestern side. If any of the boys had seen him rowing in from a yachtanchored just off shore, had seen him land on the beach and drag his boatwell up on it with supreme strength, and had seen him set off through thefields and along the strips of beaches of the coves, if any of the boyshad seen all this and had looked carefully into his forbidding face, withits malign, evil expression, it is probable that that boy might and wouldhave seen a striking resemblance to that same individual whom he had seenin flight on a certain evening, and have wondered and feared whatbusiness could bring him back to the scene of former danger at this hour.
Not being seen by them, nor by anybody else, the man slunk along, nowrunning, as a clear stretch of field opened up before him, now thrustinghis way through clumps of alders, now skirting the shore of some littleinlet.
At length he struck fairly across the island, directly toward the verytown from which, a few weeks ago, he had made so hurried an exit. Comingfinally in view of the hotel, he squatted down in the grass and surveyedthe prospect long and carefully before approaching nearer.
Squire Brackett, going on down to the hotel, would not have been so muchat ease had he felt the presence of this evil figure, crouching within afew feet of him as he went by, and following stealthily in his footsteps,pausing as he paused, and watching him wonderingly as he peered into thewindow at the boys.
Now, as the squire went on his way, the man, himself, crawled up to thewindow and cast a quick glance within.
What he saw clearly startled him, for he had expected to find the hotelin utter darkness. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then quickly drewaway from the window.
"So much the better," he muttered. "They won't stop me, and if only someone has seen them there they'll get the blame."
Stealing around to the second window distant from where the light came,the man took a short piece of iron from a coat pocket and proceeded topry the window open. Its flimsy lock broke easily under the pressure, andhe sprang inside. He may have known where he should find himself, for inthe darkness he appeared at home. It was the hotel's storeroom, and wascrowded with a litter of boxes and barrels; loose straw lay in profusion,and a barrel or two of oil stood in one corner.
It was scarce a moment from the time the man had entered till he sprangout again. But now his manner was altered. No longer proceeding withcaution, he started on a run for the fields whence he had come, holdinghis arms hard to his sides as he ran.
Up the long slope of the hill he dashed, breathing hard, rather, it wouldseem, from some deep excitement than from the exertion. So he went onwithout interruption for nearly a mile. Had he seemed less beset by somefear that drove him recklessly on, and been more mindful of his road, hemight have avoided the third person who was abroad this night, and whonow suddenly loomed large in it.
Plunging desperately along through the rough pasture, following anuncertain path as it wound in and among clumps of cedars and alders, theman all at once ran full tilt into another man, or, rather, a large,heavy-set youth, and, clutching at each other, they both fell sprawlingupon the ground.
"Hulloa!" exclaimed Jack Harvey, for he it was, "you seem in a confoundedhurry, my friend, and that's something new on this island, I'll be bound.Why don't you--" but, as they scrambled up together, Jack Harveygrumbling, but inclined to treat the incident as a rough joke, the manlunged out heavily at him with his fist and struck him full in the face.
Jack Harvey was no coward. He clinched with the man, and they reeled fora moment in a fierce embrace. But the man had muscles of iron, and,nerved to desperation, more than matched Harvey. Presently he threw theyouth to the ground, and as Harvey struggled to his feet again he dealthim a blow between the eyes that stretched him flat, and for a momentstunned him.
Before Harvey had regained his feet and collected his senses, the man wasoff, running harder now than ever.
When Harvey finally stood upright, his first impulse was to set out inpursuit of his mysterious adversary. On second thought he paused a momentto consider the matter.
Who could the stranger be, and where could he be going? There was onething Jack Harvey did know. He knew every living soul on all the island,man and boy, and this man was not of them. There was not a fishermanalong this part of the coast with whom Harvey had not cast a line orraced with his yacht, the _Surprise_. He had looked the man fair in theface twice in their struggle, and thought for the moment that he hadnever seen him before.
He had come from some othe
r island, or the mainland, then, and, as wasevident, he was in desperate haste to return. He must, then, have a boat,presumably a sailboat, waiting for him, and that boat must be mooredsomewhere along the western shore of the island. The man's haste and fearof being delayed argued that he had been up to some bad business,"Thieving at the hotel, perhaps," said Harvey.
And then Harvey, knowing every bush and tree and nook and corner, andevery rock and cove on all the shores of the island, ran over quickly inhis mind the inlets along the coast, to pick out the most likely spot heknew of where a man might choose to moor his yacht and steal ashore; andthe proof of his accurate knowledge was that the mental picture he drewof the place was that very cove toward which the stranger was nowtravelling, and where there lay snugly at anchor the strange yacht.
With this clearly in mind, Jack Harvey resolved to follow in pursuit,although the man had now some ten minutes the start. Harvey had theadvantage, however, that, whereas the man knew only the general directionhe must take, to Harvey every inch of the way was as familiar as theground around his own camp. For instance, he knew, when the way ledthrough Captain Coombs's grove of woods, that through the centre, themost direct way, it was boggy and hard travelling, and that one couldsave from one to three minutes by skirting along the end nearest thetown, and going through there in a smoothly travelled path.
Again, and most profitable of all, there was full five minutes to begained by swimming the narrow opening of Gull Cove, instead of followingthe line of the shore in the way it spread out in the shape of a hugepear. At the point which the stem of the pear would represent, thepassage from the bay into the cove, it was only a matter of two rodswide.
Jack Harvey did not even stop to remove his trousers, blue blouse, andtennis shoes, but plunged in and swam across.
What he had gained by this was soon apparent, for, as he ascended the topof a low bank on the farther shore, he saw running along the beach, notmany rods distant, the man whom he was pursuing.
Now the chase had become simplified and was easy for the rest of the way.There could be no doubt of the man's destination. Jack Harvey, coveringhimself with rock and tree, made no effort to come up with him, but tookhis time in following, knowing where he should ultimately find him.
Presently Harvey left the shore, ascended the bank to a roadway which leddown the island, followed it for a few rods, cut across a narrow strip offield, seated himself deliberately upon a gnarled tree-trunk, and lookedout upon a tiny inlet that was just discernible through the bushes.
There, of a certainty, lay a pretty sloop at anchor, and presently therecame to Harvey's ears the creaking of the halyards and of the ropes inthe blocks as the mainsail fluttered up.
"He's in a tearing rush to get away, sure enough," muttered Harvey. "Nowhe is getting up the anchor, and slatting it up in lively style, too. Buthe is a stronger man than I am, there's no mistake about that," andHarvey felt of two lumps on his head that bore witness to the man'sviolence.
"If I only had Joe Hinman and Allan Harding here now he wouldn't sailaway so easily. But that's neither here nor there. I'll know that eleganthull, however, and I'll know that slick-setting suit of sails anywhere inall this bay, and I'll get even with him yet. The _Surprise_ couldn'tcatch that boat in a race in a hundred years, but I'll catch him nappingsomewhere between here and Portland, or I have sailed this bay fornothing."
The yacht, its sails filling to the light morning airs, sailed slowly outfrom its place of hiding and faded away into the darkness.
Jack Harvey, waiting a moment longer to rest, started off on an easyjog-trot back to camp. "For," said he to himself, "the _Surprise_ must upanchor and after that fellow before daylight. We'll catch him first, andthen find out what he has been up to. Perhaps he is another--
"Why, by Jove!" exclaimed Harvey, suddenly, "what a fool I am! How couldI ever have forgotten for a moment where I saw that face once before? Theman in the rowboat! Whoop! And that yacht is the _Eagle_, as sure as myname is Harvey. And that man is Chambers. And to think I came across thebay with him, alone at night!"
The cold drops of perspiration stood out on Harvey's forehead at the verythought of it.
Over hills and through woods ran Harvey, his arms pressed close to hissides and his head down. He had gone about a mile in this way when, uponemerging from a dense clump of bushes and ascending at the same time alittle hill, he paused to survey the prospect ahead.
The sight that met his eyes astounded him. Up against the black morningsky there streamed a broad flaring of red, irregular and uncertain. Nowit streamed up in a widely diffused glare. Again it darted up in a seriesof sharp streaks of red.
"Heavens!" cried Harvey. "It's the hotel and it's all on fire! Now I knowit's Chambers, for certain. Now I know why he struck me down. Now I knowwhat we'll hunt him for and what we'll catch him for."
Harvey, redoubling his speed, raced for his camp.
While this strange chase of Harvey after the man had been going on, evenmore exciting things had been happening at the hotel.
Shortly before the time the man had run into Harvey in the pasture andknocked him down, the boys had finished an absorbing game of billiards,had put cues and balls carefully away, extinguished the lights, and leftthe hotel.
They were in high spirits at their harmless adventure, as they walked ashort distance together, and then separated.
"I think I'll go along with you," said Henry Burns to Tom and Bob, "ifyou'll give me that spare blanket to put down on the floor." And the boyslocked arms with him in answer, as they said good night to the Warrens.They were soon inside the tent, and, too weary to undress, threwthemselves down with their clothes on to sleep.
But scarcely had they closed their eyes when the sound of persons runninghard roused them, and they recognized the voices of the Warren boys,calling to them in excited tones.
The next moment the tent was burst open, and George and Joe Warren thrusttheir heads inside.
"Get up! Get up, boys, quick!" they cried, and Arthur, appearing the nextinstant, added his voice to the others. "Hurry!" they screamed. "Thehotel's afire and the flames are pouring out of the basement windows.We've got to give the alarm, and there's no time to be lost."
Tom and Bob and Henry Burns groaned in anguish; but the three sprang upand darted out of the door.
"Could we have done it? Oh, how could it have happened?" moaned Bob, ashis teeth fairly chattered with excitement.
"I don't see how," answered Arthur Warren. "I put the lights out myself,and we didn't light a match in all the time we were there."
"Never mind," said Henry Burns. "We've got to give the alarm. We've gotto see that everybody gets out, and let the rest take care of itself."
And they started on the run for the hotel. The fire was already plain tobe seen, for the flames were gaining the most rapid headway, and a densecloud of smoke mixed with flame poured out of the basement windows.
They rushed madly up the hotel steps, found the doors locked, smashed inone of the big front windows opening into the parlour, and one and allcrawled inside, screaming "Fire!" at the top of their lungs.
Almost the first person they encountered was Colonel Witham, rushing downthe front stairs to the office, his red face looking apoplectic withexcitement.
"What's this?" he yelled, as he came down-stairs two steps at a time."Some more of your practical joking, I'll be bound." But then, as hebreathed a choking cloud of smoke that by this time had begun to pour infrom the direction of the parlour, he changed his tone.
"Good for you, boys!" he cried. "I guess you've saved us this time.Scatter through the halls now, quick. You can do it quicker than I can.We mustn't let any one burn to death."
The colonel was, indeed, out of breath and nearly helpless, and could beof little assistance.
The boys needed no urging. They ran from one end of the long halls to theother, up-stairs and down, pounding on every door and startling theinmates of the rooms from sleep.
The guests, rushing out on eac
h floor into darkened halls, and smellingthe all-pervading smoke, were ready to jump from windows in panic; butthe boys ran quickly among them, explained just where the fire was, justwhat the particular danger was, and guided them all to escape.
Thanks to them, not a life was lost, although there were several narrowescapes. Once when the guests had assembled and a count was taken to seethat no one was missing, some one exclaimed: "Well, where's Mrs. Newcome?Has any one seen her?"
Then there was a rush and a scurrying for the second floor, but theguests were met on the stairs by Joe Warren and Tom Harris, carrying thelittle old lady in their arms. They had knocked at her door and hadreceived no response, and so, hurling themselves at the flimsy door, hadburst it in, and found her on the floor in a dead faint.
"Perhaps this will kind of square accounts with the poor old lady," saidJoe Warren, as they laid her gently down at a safe distance from thefire. "She used to complain that we made more noise than a band of wildIndians, and were always disturbing her afternoon naps, but I guess shewon't complain of our disturbing this nap." Then the boys left her in thecare of the guests, and hurried back to the fire.
The fire had gained rapid headway, and there was no hope of saving thenew part of the hotel, at least. The old-fashioned town fire-engine camerattling up in charge of Captain Sam, but, though the guests andvillagers and the boys all took turns at the pumps, the machine could dolittle more than throw a feeble stream up as high as the base of thesecond-story windows. The water-supply of the hotel, which was pumped bya windmill at a distance, was of more avail, but it was helpless againstthe headway that the flames had gained.
Soon the whole front end of the hotel collapsed, sending up a fiercecloud of smoke, ashes, and sparks.
"Lucky we're not in there now," exclaimed one of the guests. "By the way,has anybody stopped to think that we should all probably have been burnedto death if it hadn't been for these boys that we've been complaining ofall summer? Guess we'll owe them a vote of thanks, at least, when this isover."
"We can't be too thankful that everybody's saved," said another.
"That all may be," growled Colonel Witham, "but I can't see so much to bethankful for in watching a twenty-five thousand dollar hotel burn topieces, and I've got the lease of it--" But his sentence was interruptedby a piercing wail that came from the scene of the fire, and, followingthe sound of the noise, one and all looked up in time to see a large,handsome tiger cat leap from a window from which smoke was pouring to anarrow ledge which was as yet untouched by the flames. There it crouched,crying with fear.
"Oh, it's poor Jerry! It's my poor Jerry!" cried a thin, piping voice,and old Mrs. Newcome, roused from her faint, came forward, trembling andwaving her hands helplessly. "Oh, can't somebody save him?" she cried."He knows more than lots of these boys. Why don't somebody do something?"
"Can't erzactly see as anybody's goin' ter risk his life for a fool cat,"muttered one of the villagers. "There ain't no ladder'll reach up there.Guess Jerry's a goner, and lucky it ain't a baby."
Waving her hands wildly and moaning, Jerry's old mistress was a patheticsight, as Henry Burns went up and spoke to her.
"I'm afraid I can't do much," he said, "but I'll try. You just wait here,and don't take on so. I know some things about climbing around this hotelthat the others don't." And he gave a quiet smile. Then he suddenlydarted across to the old hotel, and, before any one could stop him,disappeared up the stairs. Wholly unmindful of the fact that a humanbeing was risking his life for that of a dumb animal, old Mrs. Newcometook fresh hope and screamed shrilly, in words intended to encourage theterrified Jerry.
All at once the crowd of guests and villagers saw a boy's slight figureat the edge of the hotel roof in relief against the sky.
"Who's that?" they screamed. "I thought every one was safely out," criedone to another.
"It's that Burns boy, and he's going to save Jerry," piped old Mrs.Newcome. "He's--"
A howl of indignation drowned her voice, and a chorus of voices rose upto Henry Burns, demanding that he return.
But, helpless now to prevent, they saw him coolly divest himself of hiscoat, seize hold of a lightning-rod, and go hand over hand quickly to thetop. Then he stood for a moment on the only remaining wall of the hotel,for the rest of the roof, though not yet aflame, had caved in and brokenpartly away from the end wall.
Along this narrow strip of wall crept Henry Burns; but when he had cometo the end of it there was a sheer drop of ten feet down to the ledgewhere the cat crouched, wailing and lashing its tail.
"Go back! Go back!" screamed those below. "You can't do anything."
But Henry Burns, paying not the least attention, reached one hand intohis pocket, drew from it a piece of rope, which he proceeded to lowertill it dangled within reach of the unfortunate Jerry.
"Grab it, Jerry! Grab it!" piped old Mrs. Newcome; and, whether in answerto the familiar voice or from an appreciation of the situation, Jerryfastened his claws into the rope, clawed at it furiously till all fourfeet were fast, and so, miaowing shrilly, was drawn up to safety by HenryBurns.
Back along the wall he crawled, and, sliding down the lightning-rod, wasonce more on the roof of the old hotel. Then, with Mrs. Newcome's catperched on his shoulder, he shortly reappeared below, amid the cheeringof the crowd.
"I'll never say you boys are bad again and ought to be horsewhipped,"sobbed old Mrs. Newcome, as she fondled her pet.
But she got no farther, for a moment later the end wall, on which HenryBurns had stood shortly before, was seen to sway violently. Then, with awrenching and tearing, as of beams split apart, and with grinding oftimbers, it collapsed upon the roof of the old hotel, and a few minuteslater that, too, was all ablaze, and there was nought to be done by anyone but to stand helplessly and see the flames devour everything.
When morning lighted up the spot where on the previous day the hotel hadstood, the pride of the village and the boast of Colonel Witham, the sunshone only on a charred and blackened heap of ruins.