“I tell you, father, it is true.  There was no mistaking Stephen’s words just now, and, besides that, I’ve heard noises that might have told me as much, only I thought the house was haunted.  I tell you there is some one—­some one who’ll be burnt alive if we’re not quick—­and every moment’s precious.  Won’t you try to save her?”

“Of course I will.  Only I don’t want to risk my life for a fancy.  Is there a ladder anywhere?”

“Yes, yes.  The men have ladders.”

“And where’s this room where you say the woman is shut up?”

“At that corner of the house,” answered Ellen, pointing.

“There’s a door at the end of the passage, but no window looking this way.  There’s only one, and that’s over the wood-yard.”

“Then it would be easiest to get in that way?”

“No, no, father.  The wood’s all piled up above the window.  It would take such a time to move it.”

“Never mind that.  Anything’s better than the risk of going into yonder house.  Besides, the room’s locked, you say.  Have you got the key?”

“No; but I could get it from Stephen, I daresay.”

“We won’t wait for you to try.  We’ll begin at the wood-yard.”

“Take Robert Dunn with you, father.  He’s a good brave fellow.”

“Yes, I’ll take Dunn.”

The bailiff hurried away to the wood-yard, accompanied by Dunn and another man carrying a tall ladder.  The farm-servants had ceased from their futile efforts at quenching the fire by this time.  It was a labour too hopeless to continue.  The flames had spread to the west wing.  The ivy was already crackling, as the blaze crept over it.  Happily that shut-up room was at the extreme end of the building, the point to which the flames must come last.  And here, just at the moment when the work of devastation was almost accomplished, came the Malsham fire-engine rattling along gaily through the dewy morning, and the Malsham amateur fire-brigade, a very juvenile corps as yet, eager to cover itself with laurels, but more careful in the adjustment of its costume than was quite consistent with the desperate nature of its duty.  Here came the brigade, in time to do something at any rate, and the engine soon began to play briskly upon the western wing.

Ellen Whitelaw was in the wood-yard, watching the work going on there with intense anxiety.  The removal of the wood pile seemed a slow business, well as the three men performed their work, flinging down great crushing piles of wood one after another without a moment’s pause.  They were now joined by the Malsham fire-escape men, who had got wind of some one to be rescued from this part of the house, and were eager to exhibit the capabilities of a new fire-escape, started with much hubbub and glorification, after an awful fire had ravaged Malsham High-street, and half-a-dozen lives had been wasted because the old fire-escape was out of order and useless.

“We don’t want the fire-escape,” cried Mr. Carley as the tall machine was wheeled into the yard.  “The room we want to get at isn’t ten feet from the ground.  You can give us a hand with this wood if you like.  That’s all we want.”