d within, burying them
helplessly.

The shrieks and cries increased as Dick tore off back along the side of
the fallen tent, heedless of the heaving and sinking of the canvas and
the figures struggling out beneath the edges. For he had but one
thought: to get in by the way he had come and try and help those he
knew--Lacey and the tall, fair girl who had been seated there a few
minutes before.

As he reached the mess-room end the smothered cries and shrieks were
horrible; but people were struggling out fast now, and officers in
uniform could be seen dragging ladies from beneath the canvas. In other
places, knives were being plunged through and slits made from within,
out of which hands appeared, and, the holes being enlarged, people were
rapidly dragged out by the servants and soldiers who came hurrying up
from the barrack yard and by those who had been outside listening.

And all the time, amidst the hubbub of cries, appeals, and groans, the
canvas kept on heaving where the frightened, suffocating people beneath
were struggling together now and fighting vainly to escape.

Suddenly one of the bandsmen put his cornet to his lips and blew a
familiar call, with the result that a number of the soldiers fell into
line. One of the escaped officers began to give short, sharp, decisive
orders, and then, leading and directing the men, an attack was made upon
the canvas ropes. Stakes were torn up, and great openings made, out of
which numbers escaped--the ladies with their gay ball habiliments torn,
their hair dishevelled, many of them to fall fainting and be borne into
the ball-room by the side entrance.

These efforts were soon being continued on all sides, the military
discipline displaying itself more and more as the officers got free and
then kept back the gathering crowd and those who made frantic efforts to
help, but only hindered, the workers. The doctors were established in
the tea-room, which was turned into a hospital, and the insensible and
injured were rapidly borne in to them, while the cooler people who kept
their heads, assisted.

It was quite time that the aid was effectual, for now a fresh horror was
making itself evident. The explosion had resulted in darkness; but in
two places smoke was arising, and one of these spots was where the
canvas and poles lay thickest, and from whence Dick, who worked
frantically, had dragged over a dozen people out, and helped to bear
others who lay insensible, suffocat