Page 87 - the-thirty-nine-steps

struggled out of the debris to my feet. Somewhere behind
me I felt fresh air. The jambs of the window had fallen, and
through the ragged rent the smoke was pouring out to the
summer noon. I stepped over the broken lintel, and found
myself standing in a yard in a dense and acrid fog. I felt
very sick and ill, but I could move my limbs, and I staggered
blindly forward away from the house.
A small mill-lade ran in a wooden aqueduct at the other
side of the yard, and into this I fell. The cool water revived
me, and I had just enough wits left to think of escape. I
squirmed up the lade among the slippery green slime till
I reached the mill-wheel. Then I wriggled through the axle
hole into the old mill and tumbled on to a bed of chaff. A
nail caught the seat of my trousers, and I left a wisp of heath-
er-mixture behind me.
The mill had been long out of use. The ladders were rot-
ten with age, and in the loft the rats had gnawed great holes
in the floor. Nausea shook me, and a wheel in my head
kept turning, while my left shoulder and arm seemed to be
stricken with the palsy. I looked out of the window and saw
a fog still hanging over the house and smoke escaping from
an upper window. Please God I had set the place on fire, for
I could hear confused cries coming from the other side.
But I had no time to linger, since this mill was obviously
a bad hiding-place. Anyone looking for me would naturally
follow the lade, and I made certain the search would begin
as soon as they found that my body was not in the store-
room. From another window I saw that on the far side of the
mill stood an old stone dovecot. If I could get there without

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