Chapter XXX: The Lane of Fire

An icy wind was blowing as Maud climbed the steep road by the church. It whirled down on her with a fierceness that made quick progress out of the question. Nevertheless, she fought valiantly against it, fearing that Jake would have returned before her.

It was not dark. The tearing wind had chased all clouds from the sky, and the daylight still lingered. Ahead of her the North Star hung like a beacon, marvellously bright. There was a smell of smoke in the air that seemed to accentuate the bitter coldness.

The church clock struck six as she passed it, and she sought to quicken her steps, she did not want Jake to come in search of her. For some reason she did not greatly want to tell him how she had been spending the afternoon.

Round the bend of the road the wind caught her mercilessly. She had to battle against it with all her might to make any progress at all. It was while she was struggling round this bend that there suddenly came to her the sound of galloping hoofs and a man's voice wildly shouting. She drew to one side, and stood against the hedge; and in a moment a horseman dashed into view and thundered past her. He was lying forward on the animal's neck, urging him like a jockey.

He was gone like a whirlwind into the dusk, and Maud was left with a throbbing heart that seemed to have been touched by a hand that was icy-cold. She was nearly sure that the animal had come from the Stables and that the man was Sam Vickers. He was not a furious rider as a rule. What had induced him to ride like that to-night? Something was wrong--something was wrong! The certainty of it stabbed her like a knife. What could it be? What? What? Had Jake met with an accident? Was Sam tearing thus madly down to Fairharbour to find the doctor?

The strength of a great fear entered into her. She began to run up the hill in the teeth of the wind. She had only half a mile to go. She would soon know the worst.

But she had not gone twenty yards before her progress was checked. She became aware of a drifting mist all about her, a mist that made her gasp and choke. She ran on in the face of it, but it was with failing progress, for the further she went the more it enveloped her like the smoke of a vast bonfire.

The coldness at her heart became a tangible and ever-growing fear. She tried to tell herself that the suffocating vapour blowing down on her came from a group of ricks that stood not far from the entrance to the Stables. Some mischievous person had fired them, and Sam had discovered it and gone to raise the alarm. But deep within her there clamoured an insistent something that refused to be reassured. Struggling on through the blinding, ever-thickening smoke, the conviction forced itself upon her that no hayricks were responsible for that headlong gallop of Sam's. He had gone as a man going for his life. His progress had been winged by tragedy.

Gasping, stumbling, with terror in her soul, she fought her way on, till a further bend in the road revealed to her the driving smoke all lurid with the glare of flames behind. By that curve she escaped from the direct drift of it and found herself able to breathe more freely. The shoulder of the hill protected her at this point in some degree from the wind also. She covered the ground more quickly and with less effort.

It was here that there first came to her that awful sound as of a rending, devouring monster--the fierce crackling and roaring of fire. The horror of it set all her pulses leaping, but its effect upon her senses was curiously stimulating. Where another might have been paralysed by fear, she was driven forward as though goaded irresistibly. It came to her--whence she knew not--that something immense lay before her. A task of such magnitude as she had never before contemplated had been laid upon her; and strength--such strength as had never before been hers--had been given to her for its accomplishment.

She did not know exactly when her fear became certainty, but when that happened all personal fear passed utterly away from her. She forgot herself completely. All her being leapt to the fulfilment of the unknown task.

The last curve in the uphill road brought her within view of the red flames rushing skyward and curling over like fiery waves before the wind. Through the roar of the furnace there came to her the shouting of men's voices and the wild stampeding of horses. And twice ere she reached the gates she heard the terrible cry of a horse. Then as though she moved on wings, she was there in the stable-yard in the thick of the confusion, with the fire roaring ahead of her and the red glare all around.

The whole stone-paved space seemed crowded with men and horses, and for the first few seconds the noise and movement bewildered her. Then she grasped the fact that only one side of the double row of stables was alight and that in consequence of the driving north wind the other side was in comparative safety.

They were leading the terrified animals out through a passage that led to further buildings on this safe side. But the task was no light one, for they were all maddened by fear and almost beyond control.

As she drew nearer however Maud saw that the men themselves were grappling with the situation with energy and resolution, and there was no panic among them. One--a mere lad--gripping a plunging horse by the forelock, recognized her and shouted a warning through the din.

She came to him, unheeding the trampling hoofs. "Is Mr. Bolton back?" she cried.

He shook his head, striving to back the animal away from her. He had a halter flung over his shoulder which he had not stopped to adjust.

Maud took it from him, and between them, with difficulty, they slipped it over the terrified creature's head. Then, obtaining a firmer hold, the boy shouted further information.

"No, the boss ain't back yet. He'll be in any minute now. Sam's gone for the fire-engine. He thinks the house will be safe if the wind don't veer. But the other side'll be burnt out before he gets back at this rate. We've got most all the animals out now though."

"Not all?" Maud cried the words with a momentary wild misgiving.

The boy yelled back again, still wrestling with the struggling horse. "All but The Hundredth Chance. He's gone by this time. We couldn't save 'im. It's like an open furnace along there."

Then she knew what it was that lay before her, the task for which this great new strength had been bestowed. She left the boy and ran up the yard in the rear of that raging fire. She did not feel the stones under her feet. The seething crowd of men and horses became no more than shadows on the wall. Twice as she went she narrowly escaped death from the plunging hoofs, and knew it not....

The heat was terrific, but the smoke was all blown away from her. She felt no suffocation. But when she reached the stone passage that led to the group of loose-boxes where once she had stood horror-stricken and listened to Jake reprimanding Dick Stevens in the language of the stables, she realized the truth of what the boy had said. It was like an open furnace.

Yet there seemed a chance--the faintest chance--that that one loose-box at the southern corner, the best loose-box in the whole of the Stables--might yet be untouched by the devouring flames. The block of buildings was alight and burning fiercely, but it was not yet alight from end to end. It looked like a lane of fire at the end of that stone passage, but she could see the line of loose-boxes beyond, fitfully through wreaths of smoke. All the doors stood open as far as she could see. They had evidently taken the animals in order, and it had been the fate of The Hundredth Chance to be left till last.

And how to reach him! It had baffled his rescuers. For the moment it baffled her also. She stood at the entrance to the stone passage looking through, feeling the stones under her feet hot like a grid, seeing the red flames leaping from roof to roof.

Then the driving wind came swirling behind her, and she felt as if a hand had pushed her. She plunged into the passage and ran before it.

She emerged in that lane of fire. It roared all around her. She felt the heat envelop her with a fiery, blistering intensity, but ever that unseen hand seemed to urge her. She hesitated no more, though she rushed into a seething cauldron of flame.

And ever the thought of Jake was with her, Jake who loved his animals as he loved nothing else on earth.

She reached that line of boxes, how she knew not. The roof was burning now from end to end, but as she tore past the open doors there came to her an awful cry, and she knew that the colt still lived.

The smoke came down on her here, blinding her, but though it stopped her breath it could not stop her progress. It seemed as though no power on earth could do that now until she had reached her goal. Crouching, with lungs that felt like bursting, she forced a way over those last desperate yards.

Every door was open save that one, and against that one there came a maddened wild tattoo. The Hundredth Chance was fighting for life.

She reached the door through swirling smoke. The flames were shooting over her head. She caught at the bolt. It was burning hot as the door of an oven; but she knew no pain. She dragged it back.

Again there came that fearful shriek and the battering of heels against the wood. The animal was plunging about his prison like a mad thing. She mustered all her strength and pushed upper and lower doors inwards at the same moment.

Instantly there came the rush of hoofs. She was flung violently backwards, falling headlong on the stones. The Hundredth Chance galloped free; and she was left shattered, inert, with the fire raging all around her.

But the deed was done, the great task accomplished. And nothing mattered any more. Jake loved his animals as he loved nothing else on earth....