The door burst open and the miller went down headlong under Le Marchant’s savage blow.

“Next!” he cried, swinging his club athwart the doorway.  But, though there were many voices, no head was offered for his blow.

The flames burned fiercely behind us.  With a crack of my chair leg I broke both windows, and the smoke poured out and relieved us somewhat, and the fire blazed up more fiercely still.  The flooring was all on fire and the dry old walls behind the bed, and we stood waiting for the next man to appear.

“Better give in, boys,” cried someone in the outer room.  “You’ll only make things worse for yourselves.”  But we answered never a word, and stood the more cautiously on our guard.

Then they began throwing buckets of water in at the door, and we heard it splashing also on the outer walls, but none came near the fire, since the bed was not opposite the door.

We were scorched and half smothered, but the draught through the door and out at the window still gave us chance to breathe.

The bedstead fell in a blazing heap, the flames crept round the walls.  We could not stand it much longer.  We would have to lay down our chair legs and surrender.

Then a very strange thing happened.

Le Marchant saw it first and grabbed my arm.

The portion of the blazing bedstead nearest the wall sank down through the floor and disappeared, and at a glance we saw our way, though how far it might lead us we could not tell.

“Allons!” said Le Marchant, and without a moment’s hesitation leaped down into the smoke that came rolling up out of the hole, and I followed.

We landed on barrels and kegs covered with blazing embers.  Le Marchant gave a laugh at sight of their familiar faces, and, by way of further payment to the miller, dashed his heel through the head of a keg and sped on, while the flames roared out afresh behind us.

For a short way we had the light of the blaze, but soon we were past it and groping in darkness down a narrow tunnel way.  It seemed endless, but fresh blowing air came puffing up to us at last, and of a sudden we crept out into the night through a clump of gorse on the side of a cliff.  Below us was the sea, and on the shingle lay a six-oared galley such as the preventive men use.

“Devil’s luck!” laughed Le Marchant, and we slipped and rolled down the cliff to the shore, with never a doubt as to our next move.  We set our shoulders to the black galley, ran it gaily down the shingle, and took to the oars.  As we got out from under the land we saw the house blazing fiercely on the cliff.  There was a keg in the boat and a mast with a leg-of-mutton sail.  We stepped the mast and set the sail and drew swiftly out to sea.

I do not think either of us ever found a voyage so much to our liking as this.  Our craft was but a Customs’ galley, twenty feet long and four feet in beam, it is true, and we were heading straight out into the North Sea.  We had not a scrap of food, but we had fared well the night before, and the keg in the bows suggested hopes.  But we were homeward bound, and we had just come through dire peril by the sheer mercy of Providence.