Through the Wall Part 75

At her frightened tone Coquenil calmed himself and answered gently: "It's like a big electric fan, it's drawing air out of this room very fast, with a powerful suction, and I'm afraid--unless----"

Just then there came a sharp pop followed by a hissing noise as if some one were breathing in air through shut teeth.

"There goes the first one! Come over here!" He bent toward the logs, searching for something. "Ah, here it is! Do you feel the air blowing through _toward_ us? The blower has sucked out one of our cloth plugs.

There goes another!" he said, as the popping sound was repeated. "And another! It's all off with our barricade, little girl!"

"You--you mean the fire will come through now?" she gasped. He could hear her teeth chattering and feel her whole body shaking in terror.

Coquenil did not answer. He was looking through one of the open cracks, studying the dull glow beyond, and noting the hot breath that came through.

What could he do? The fire was gaining with every second, the whirling blower was literally dragging the flames toward them through the dry wood pile. Already the heat was increasing, it would soon be unbearable; at this rate their hold on life was a matter of minutes.

"The fire may come through--a little," he answered comfortingly, "but I--I'll fix it so you will be--all right. Come! We'll build another barricade. You know wood is a bad conductor of heat, and--if you have wood all about you and--over you, why, the fire can't burn you."

"Oh!" said Alice.

"We'll go over to this door as far from the pa.s.sageway as we can get. Now bring me logs from that side pile! That's right!"

He glanced at the old barricade and saw, with a shudder, that it was already pierced with countless open cracks that showed the angry fire beyond. And through these cracks great volumes of smoke were pouring.

Fortunately, most of this smoke, especially at first, was borne away upward by the blower's suction, and for some minutes Alice was able to help Coquenil with the new barricade. They built this directly in front of the iron door, with only s.p.a.ce enough between it and the door to allow them to crouch behind it; they made it about five feet long and three feet high.

Coquenil would have made it higher, but there was no time; indeed, he had to do the last part of the work alone, for Alice sank back overcome by the smoke.

"Lie down there," he directed. "Stretch right out behind the logs and keep, your mouth close to the floor and as near as you can to the crack under the door. You'll have plenty of cool, sweet air. See? That's right. Now I'll fix a roof over this thing and pretty soon, if it gets uncomfortable up here, I'll crawl in beside you. It's better not to look at the silly old barricade. Just shut your eyes and--rest. Understand little friend?"

"Ye-es," she murmured faintly, and with sinking heart, he realized that already she was drifting toward unconsciousness. Ah, well, perhaps that was the best thing!

He looked down at the fair young face and thought of her lover languis.h.i.+ng in prison. What a wretched fate theirs had been! What sufferings they had borne! What injustice! And now this end to their dream of happiness!

He turned to his work. He would guard her while life and strength remained, and he wondered idly, as he braced the overhead logs against the iron door, how many more minutes of life this shelter would give them. Why take so much pains for so paltry a result?

He turned toward the barricade and saw that the flames were licking their way through the wall of logs, shooting and curling their hungry red tongues through many openings. The heat was becoming unbearable. Well, they were at the last trench now, he was surprised at the clearness and calmness of his mind. Death did not seem such a serious thing after all!

Coquenil crawled in behind the shelter of logs and crouched down beside the girl. She was quite unconscious now, but was breathing peacefully, smilingly, with face flushed and red lips parted. The glorious ma.s.ses of her reddish hair were spread over the girls white shoulders, and it seemed to M. Paul that he had never seen so beautiful a picture of youth and innocence.

Suddenly there was a crumbling of logs at the pa.s.sageway and the chamber became light as day while a blast of heat swept over them. Coquenil looked out around the end of the shelter and saw flames a yard long shooting toward them through widening breaches in the logs. And a steady roar began.

It was nearly over now, although close to the floor the air was still good.

He reflected that, with the enormous amount of wood here, this fire would rage hotter and hotter for hours until the stones themselves would be red hot or white hot and--there would be nothing left when it all was over, absolutely nothing left but ashes. No one would ever know their fate.

Then he thought of his mother. He wished he might have sent her a line--still she would know that her boy had fallen in a good cause, as his father had fallen. He needn't worry about his mother--she would know.

Now another log crumbled with a sharp crackling. Alice stirred uneasily and opened her eyes. Then she sat up quickly, and there was something in her face Coquenil had never seen there, something he had never seen in any face.

"Willie, you naughty, naughty boy!" she cried. "You have taken my beautiful dolly. Poor little Esmeralda! You threw her up on that shelf, Willie; yes, you did."

Then, before Coquenil could prevent it, she slipped out from behind the shelter and stood up in the fire-bound chamber.

"Come back!" he cried, reaching after her, but the girl evaded him.

"There it is, on that shelf," she went on positively, and, following her finger, Coquenil saw, what he had not noticed before, a ma.s.sive stone shelf jutting out from the wall just over the wood pile. "You must get my dolly,"

she ordered.

"Certainly, I'll get it," said M. Paul soothingly. "Come back here and--I'll get your dolly."

She stamped her foot in displeasure. "Not at all; I don't _like_ this place. It's a hot, _nasty_ place and--come"--she caught Coquenil's hand--"we'll go out where the fairies are. That's a _much_ nicer place to play, Willie."

Here there came to M. Paul an urging of mysterious guidance, as if an inward voice had spoken to him and said that G.o.d was trying to save them, that He had put wisdom in this girl's mouth and that he must listen.

"All right," he said, "we'll go and play where the fairies are, but--how do we get there?"

"Through the door under the shelf. You know _perfectly_ well, Willie!"

"Yes," he agreed, "I know about the door, but--I forget how to get it open."

"Silly!" She stamped her foot again. "You push on that stone thing under the shelf."

Shading his eyes against the glare, Coquenil looked at the shelf and saw that it was supported by two stone brackets.

"You mean the thing that holds the shelf up?"

"Yes, you must press it."

"But there are two things that hold the shelf up. Is it the one on this side that you press or the one on that side?"

"Dear me, what an _aggravating_ boy! It's the one _this_ side, of course."

"Good! You lie down now and I'll have it open in a jiffy."

He started to force Alice behind the shelter, for the heat was actually blistering the skin, but to his surprise he found her suddenly limp in his arms. Having spoken these strange words of wisdom or of folly, she had gone back into unconsciousness.

Coquenil believed that they were words of wisdom, and without a moment's hesitation, he acted on that belief. The wall underneath the shelf was half covered with piled-up logs and these must be removed; which meant that he must work there for several minutes with the fierce breath of the fire hissing over him.

It was the work of a madman, or of one inspired. Three times Coquenil fell to the floor, gasping for breath, blinded by the flames that were roaring all about him, poisoned by deadly fumes. The skin on his arms and neck was hanging away in shreds, the pain was unbearable, yet he bore it, the task was impossible, yet he did it.

At last the s.p.a.ce under the shelf was cleared, and staggering, blackened, blinded, yet believing, Paul Coquenil stumbled forward and seized the left-hand bracket in his two bruised hands and pressed it with all his might.

Instantly a door underneath, cunningly hidden in the wall, yawned open on a square black pa.s.sage.

"It's here that the fairies play," muttered M. Paul, "and it's a mighty good place for us!"

With a bound he was back at the shelter and had Alice in his arms, smiling again, as she slept--as she dreamed. And a moment later he had carried her safely through flames that actually singed her hair, and laid her tenderly in the cool pa.s.sage. _And beside her he laid the baron's diary!_

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And a moment later he had carried her safely through the flames."]

Then he went back to close the door. It was high time, for the last obstructing logs of the old barricade had fallen and the chamber was a seething ma.s.s of fire.

"I feel pretty rotten," reflected Coquenil with a whimsical smile. "My hair is burned off and my eyebrows are gone and about half my skin, but--I guess I'll take a chance on a burn or two more and rescue Esmeralda!"

Whereupon he reached up inside that fiery furnace and, groping over the hot stone shelf, brought down a scorched and battered and dust-covered little figure that had lain there for many years.