The one difficulty had been to get the several hundred people there. They had all in readiness for months, watching. They had it ready while the family council sat, and had deliberated about knocking the last wedge out at that time, but on reflection it was doubtful whether the Americans had much coin about them. Finally, one shrewd sewer-rat hit upon the idea of engaging Mademoiselle F⸺o to come down and sing. They paid her one hundred pounds in advance, with travelling expenses to come afterwards; and it would have been a good speculation in itself, for they took three hundred and fifty pounds, including the boxes. These boxes were a worry. They could not be let down, they were not built on wooden pillars; however, it was easy to shut one of the folding-doors at the entrance, and let the bolt drop into the stone—easy to raise a cry of “Fire!”—easy to imagine the crush at the door.
Easy also for me to enter into a catalogue of broken limbs, ribs, fractures, contusions, gashes, etc., etc.—I shall leave it to the surgical imagination. But when hundreds of people, closely packed, are suddenly precipitated eighteen feet, amid splintering planks and crushing beams, it is probable that the hospitals will be full. This was the third scene preparing underneath.
Just as Fulk felt Theodore close to him—just as F⸺o uttered her sweetest trill—just as Violet was in the height of her enjoyment—the grey rat gave his last nibble—the last wedge was knocked away; and the floor went down. Poor Violet saw it all. She saw fourteen hundred hands suddenly thrown up into the air; she heard one awful cry, she felt the box tremble and vibrate, and the whole audience sank—sank as into one great pit. She turned deadly pale; she clung with both hands to the balustrade; but she did not faint. It was all too quick.
Fulk was in a stooping position, struggling to escape. That saved him. He fell with his body across a joist, which with a few others had not been sawn—some few had to be left to keep the floor apparently safe. His arms flew out in front, his legs struggling behind; he was poised on the centre of his body. At any other time one might have laughed. In that terrible moment the instinctive love of life endowed him with unusual strength. He knew not how he did it, but he got astride of the joist; he worked himself along it; he reached one of the slender iron columns or shafts which supported the boxes and gallery. He who mistrusted his power to climb a rope, in that hour of horrors went up that shaft with ease, assisted by the scroll-work on it. He got into the very box where Violet sat, with straining eyes gazing into that bottomless pit. Exhausted, he fell on his knees beside her. Exhausted, he heard the cry of “Fire!”—heard the rush to the doors. He remained on his knees, gazing, like her, down into the pit.
The cry that rose up—the shouts, the groans, the shrieks—will ring in Fulk’s ears till his death. Violet never heard a sound; her whole faculties were concentrated in her eyes. Heaps of human beings striving, heaving; fragments of dresses, opera cloaks fluttering from joists in midair; splinters with pieces of torn coats—Ah! I cannot write it; and she dares not tell me. One dares not dwell on this scene. One more word only. Fulk glanced at the stage: still the lights burnt there; the painted scene was untouched; the singer, F⸺o, had fled by the stage staircase.
It is odd, but the idea since came to me—she was the cheese; the hall, the trap. The simile will hardly bear close investigation.
It was those few minutes that Fulk and Violet spent in motionless horror that saved them. They thereby escaped the crush at the door; that is to say, they escaped being in it; it was impossible to go out without seeing it. Fulk recovered himself a little: his first instinct was that of a gentleman—the lady beside him. He caught her arm, and dragged her up from her seat; and she came with him unresistingly out of the box into the corridor: he could feel her whole frame tremble. Perhaps, reasoning after the event, they might as well have sat still; but remember the awful cry of fire, the instinctive desire to escape, and that Fulk was still fearful of being recaptured! They reached the staircase—descended it to within a few feet of the passage. There they saw a black mass, writhing, heaving: it was a mass of men and women who had fallen, and been trodden down. It extended along the whole passage to the open air. Then Violet fainted, and hung in his arms inert, helpless. Poor girl! it was enough to unnerve the boldest man. Fulk grasped her round the waist—he was short remember—he struggled with her; got his feet on that awful floor of moving bodies; he stumbled, and staggered towards the air, gasping for breath, dragging, half-trailing her behind him. He cried for help—his arms failed him; his poor, weak leg—the one that had been broken—slipped down into a crevice between two fallen men, and strive how he would he could not get it out. A mist swam before his eyes; but he did not let go—gallant little Fulk!
Strong arms seized him. Cabmen, police, coachmen, grooms—idlers who had rushed to the doors—seized him, and pulled him out, and set him on his legs, and pushed the brandy flask between his teeth. And still Fulk instinctively held tight to his burden.
“Where shall I drive you, sir?” said one cabman.
“To—I don’t know. Where is
