Lucius went out to the end of the house with a couple of lighted lanterns, and remained there moving about among the men as the work slowly progressed—remained giving them such help as he could—sustaining them with counsel—supplying them with beer, which one of the stray boys, retained for the purpose, fetched from a neighbouring publichouse by special license of the policeman, who acknowledged the necessity of the case—remained faithful to his post, until, in the dullest coldest hour of the dark windy night, Ferdinand Sivewright was discovered under a heap of rafters, which had fallen crosswise and made a kind of penthouse above him. This accident had just saved him from being smothered by the fallen rubbish. The massive crossbeam of the chimney had fallen under him, and not above him—the long-loosened supports perhaps finally destroyed by that fierce shock which his own mad rush at the sliding panel had given to the fabric, weakened long ago by the injudicious cutting of the timbers when the old banquet-hall was pulled down. They lifted him out of the wreck, and, to the marvel of all of them, alive, although unconscious. Lucius examined him carefully as he lay upon a heap of the men’s coats and jackets, pallid, and bloodstained. Two of the men held the lanterns as Lucius knelt down beside that awful figure to make his investigation. Both legs were broken, the ribs crushed inwards; in short, the case was fatal, though the man still lived. ‘Come indoors with me,’ cried Lucius, ‘two of you good fellows, and we’ll pull down a door and put a mattress upon it; we must take him to the London Hospital.’ Two men followed him to the house; they selected one of the doors in the back premises, an old washhouse door that hung loosely enough on its rusty hinges, and proceeded to unscrew this, while Lucius went up-stairs for a mattress. A few minutes afterwards they had laid Ferdinand Sivewright on this extemporary litter, and were carrying him, loosely covered with a couple of coats, to the London Hospital. There was a surgical examination by two of the best men in London early next morning; but as nothing that surgery could do could have prolonged that wicked life, the consultation ended only in the simple sentence, ‘A fatal case.’ ‘Do what you can to make the poor fellow comfortable,’ said the chief surgeon; ‘it would be useless to put him to any pain by trying to set the broken bones; amputation might have answered, but for those injuries to the ribs and chest—those alone would be fatal. I give him about twenty-four hours. The brain is uninjured, and there may be a return of consciousness before the end.’