ars below.

Unconsciously Sara's hands had clenched themselves, and the nails were
biting into the flesh of her palms. But she felt no pain. Her whole
being seemed concentrated into the single sense of hearing as she waited
there in the candle-lit gloom, listening for every tiny sound, each
creak of a board, each scattering of loosened plaster, which might
herald danger.

Another eternity crawled by before, at length, Garth reappeared once
more round the last bend of the staircase. Tim was lying across his
shoulder, his injured leg hanging stiffly down, and in his hand he
grasped the lantern, while both Garth's arms supported him.

Sara's eyes had opened now and fixed themselves intently on the burdened
figure of the man she loved, as, with infinite caution, he began the
descent of the last flight of stairs.

There was a double strain now upon the dislocated boards and joists--the
weight of two men where one had climbed before with lithe, light,
unimpeded limbs--and it seemed to Sara's tense, set vision as if a
slight tremor ran throughout the whole stairway.

In an agony of terror she watched Garth's steady, downward progress. She
felt as though she must scream out to him to hurry--_hurry_! Yet she
bit back the scream lest it should startle him, every muscle of her body
rigid with the effort that her silence cost her.

Seven stairs more! Six!

Sara's lips were moving voicelessly. She was whispering rapidly over and
over again--

"God! God! God! Keep him safe! . . . You can do it. . . . Don't let him
fall. . . ."

Five! Only five steps more!

"Hold up the stairs! . . . God! _Don't_ let them give way! . . .
Don't----"

Again there came the familiar thudding sound of an explosion. Somewhere
another bomb, hurled from the cavernous dark that hid the enemy, had
fallen, and almost simultaneously, it seemed, a warning thunder rumbled
overhead like the menacing growl of a wild beast suddenly let loose.

At the first low mutter of that threat of imminent disaster, Garth
sprang.

Gripping Tim firmly in his arms, he leaped from the quaking staircase,
falling awkwardly, prone beneath the burden of the other's helpless
body, as he landed.

And even as he reached the ground, the upper story of the house, with a
roar that shook the whole remaining fabric of the building, crashed to
earth in an avalanche of stone and brick and flying slates, whilst the
stairway upon which he had been standing gave a sickening lurch,