Sara drew close to Garth’s side.

“Must you go, Garth?” she asked.  “Wouldn’t it be safe to wait till help comes?”

“Tim isn’t safe there, actually five minutes.  The floors may hold—­or they mayn’t!  I must go, sweet.”

She caught his hand and held it an instant against her cheek.  Then—­

“Go, dear,” she whispered.  “Go quickly.  And oh!—­God keep you!”

He was gone, picking his way gingerly, treading as lightly as a cat, so that the wrenched stairway hardly creaked beneath his swift, lithe steps.

Once there came the sudden rattle of some falling scrap of broken plaster, and Sara, leaning with closed eyes and white, set face, against the framework of a doorway, shivered soundlessly.

Soon he had disappeared round the distorted head of the staircase, and those who were watching could only discern the bobbing glimmer of the light he carried mounting higher and higher.

Then—­after an interminable time, it seemed—­there came the sound of voices . . . he had found Tim . . . a pause . . . then again a short, quick speech and the word “Right?” drifted faintly down to the strained ears below.

Unconsciously Sara’s hands had clenched themselves, and the nails were biting into the flesh of her palms.  But she felt no pain.  Her whole being seemed concentrated into the single sense of hearing as she waited there in the candle-lit gloom, listening for every tiny sound, each creak of a board, each scattering of loosened plaster, which might herald danger.

Another eternity crawled by before, at length, Garth reappeared once more round the last bend of the staircase.  Tim was lying across his shoulder, his injured leg hanging stiffly down, and in his hand he grasped the lantern, while both Garth’s arms supported him.

Sara’s eyes had opened now and fixed themselves intently on the burdened figure of the man she loved, as, with infinite caution, he began the descent of the last flight of stairs.

There was a double strain now upon the dislocated boards and joists—­the weight of two men where one had climbed before with lithe, light, unimpeded limbs—­and it seemed to Sara’s tense, set vision as if a slight tremor ran throughout the whole stairway.

In an agony of terror she watched Garth’s steady, downward progress.  She felt as though she must scream out to him to hurry—­hurry!  Yet she bit back the scream lest it should startle him, every muscle of her body rigid with the effort that her silence cost her.

Seven stairs more!  Six!

Sara’s lips were moving voicelessly.  She was whispering rapidly over and over again—­

“God!  God!  God!  Keep him safe! . . .  You can do it. . . .  Don’t let him fall. . . .”

Five!  Only five steps more!

“Hold up the stairs! . . .  God! Don’t let them give way! . . .  Don’t——­”

Again there came the familiar thudding sound of an explosion.  Somewhere another bomb, hurled from the cavernous dark that hid the enemy, had fallen, and almost simultaneously, it seemed, a warning thunder rumbled overhead like the menacing growl of a wild beast suddenly let loose.