He paused in the hall. Voices penetrated from the drawing-room. The bridge game was still on. He climbed the broad staircase, gazed down upon by Archdeacons of past centuries in time-blackened frames. On the landings stands of armor, reflecting dim lights, appeared as sentinels.
"Fetch me a brandy-and-soda at once," he ordered. "Better make it a decanter and two sodas," he added. "I'm chilled to the bone."
He might have added that his spirits were low, and required strenuous lifting measures. But he was not the sort that shares emotions with one's servants.
He drank the pegs when they came, dismissed the man, and was almost pleased to find himself drowsy. Had he been conscious, it would have surprised him to realize that he dropped into the deepest of deep slumbers directly his head rested on a pillow.
He slept soundly for four hours, and then awakened with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. He was choking. The room was full of smoke.
Coughing like an unmuffled gas engine, he got his feet to the floor, crept to where he imagined the light-switch was--found it by a miracle and turned it on.
But there was no answering illumination. Somewhere the rubber insulation had been burned away and the current short-circuited.
This fact of itself told him that the fire was no tiny matter. Carfen House was ablaze, and probably some of its inmates were still sleeping, unwarned, as he had been. Nina! She was his first thought. Was Nina in peril?
Every minute the smoke in the room grew more dense. It seemed to him that he would never be able to find his coat or a dressing-gown; and even seconds were perhaps precious.
Desperately, at length, he snatched a blanket from the bed, drew it about him, and groped for the door. Half-blinded, his eyes smarting, he jerked it open and a scorching blast struck him in the face.
The smoke here was hot and lurid. And he dropped to his knees and crept. One way he could see flashes of lambent flame. The other way was black as night itself. But he chose it, and half-crawled, half-leaped, questioning that he would ever be able to reach the open alive.
In his ears was the roar of a thing more ferocious, more devouring than any beast of the jungle. And mingled with the roar was the crackling sound of havoc.