Eliphalet Cardomay had got his second wind and was holding the audience with a light but firm rein. He was jesting with death at his elbow—tickling the feet of Fate, and strewing the stage with half-smoked cigarettes. Old Kitterson, fired by example, had braced his shoulders for the ordeal and was doing his best to help the Guv’nor in his hour of need. They had reverted to the original text when Raeburn re-entered the box, and Kitterson was saying: “They are piling explosives beneath the main gate, sir.” “We shall go to our Maker with a better speed, then.” “Is there nothing we can do?” “Nothing, if the relief is not in time. We have still our prayers and a generous supply of these excellent cigarettes.” Kitterson (at the window): “Ah! they are lighting the fuse. They move away from it. It burns slowly—Guv’nor—sir!” Almost with a single impulse the entire audience clapped hands over his ears, and, by a caprice of fortune, some thousands of rounds of best smokeless cartridges detonated with a hollow, paralysing roar. The whole building shook. The long line of the back-cloth snapped, and it swung down from a single tether. Several women went into hysterics, and a quantity of plaster mouldings fell from the roof and splattered among the audience. Then there was silence—no sound but the soothing hiss of water on red-hot beams. Eliphalet Cardomay, with arms folded, stood in the middle of the stage, a queer smile playing about his lips; Kitterson had dropped his head in his hands and was crouching beside a table; and then the door burst open, and little Violet O’Neal, “the Colonel’s daughter,” followed by two men in officers’ uniforms, burst upon the stage. “It’s all right,” she gasped. “The danger—the worst is over.” Suddenly her part came back to her. “The rebels are flying,” she cried. “You’re safe—safe!” Eliphalet, Colonel and father, caught her to his breast, smothering something she was saying about the gasometer. “God has rescued us, my child—God is very good.” And Manning, who had dashed up from the street a second before, was just in time to ring down. “Exits all clear, Guv’nor,” he cried. “Take up the curtain, then,” said Eliphalet; and when it rose he stepped forward to the footlights and, holding up his hand for silence, said: “Ladies and gentlemen, will you kindly leave the theatre by the right and left emergency exits. There has been a fire in the street by the box-office, so this way will be more convenient.” He bowed—turned with a pardonable instinct towards the box in which Raeburn and his friend were standing, and favoured them with a very slight smile. The curtain fell and the audience, in some perplexity, but without panic, filed out of the theatre to the narrow alley at the back. “Mr. Cardomay,” said Gimball, “I reckon you’ve saved my licence.” “It had not occurred to me I had so important a task to fulfil,” returned Eliphalet. “I can tell you I’m grateful.”