Jack Chadwick opened his eyes and looked languidly about him. His ears
sang with the noise of a hundred waterfalls, his brain throbbed cruelly.
“Where on earth am I? What has happened?” he thought dully, as his eyes
took in the unfamiliar and squalid surroundings.
“Oh, how my head hurts!” was his next thought. “What can be the matter?
I must have——”
Just then recollection rushed back with the force of the incoming tide.
The boy recalled how he had followed Jake Rook up the stairs of the
tenement house, how he had crossed the roof, and finally, how he had
heard Ralph’s cry for help. At that point recollection stopped.
He sat up, feeling sick and giddy. An almost overwhelming nausea was
upon him, too. But he overmastered the feeling and rose unsteadily to
his feet.
“What a filthy room!” he mused, looking about him by the light of the
smoky lamp. “I’d give a good deal to know how I got in here. By the
feeling of my head I must have fallen, or been dealt a blow or
something. And where’s Tom? He went for the police and—hullo! what’s
that? Smells like something burning.”
The acrid smell of the flaming lower floors of the tenement had, in
fact, penetrated Jack’s nostrils, although, of course, he didn’t dream
for an instant that he was in a fire trap of the worst kind. But
suddenly, as he sat there trying to collect his wits, he became aware of
shouts and cries and the clanging of bells and shrieking of whistles.
“There must be a fire somewhere,” he thought, recognizing the clangor of
the bells and the screaming sirens of the fire engines; “maybe that’s
what delayed Tom. If there’s a fire close by there must be a lot of
police there. Anyhow, I’ve got to get out of this.”
He arose dizzily and crossed to the door. As he flung it open a great
cloud of suffocating smoke struck him full in the face, almost depriving
him of breath.
Jack reeled back, slamming the door. A thrill of horror was in his
veins. His heart beat thickly, but his blood was icy cold.
“The fire’s here! In this house!” he gasped, “and if I don’t get out
pretty quick I’ll be roasted alive!”
He hastily surveyed the room. On one side was a window. It suggested a
means of escape other than the door, which was impassable on account of
the smoke outside. Jack’s awakening had come several minutes after the
departure of Jake Rook and his companion with young Ralph. The flames
had now eaten their way up two flights, and the noises he had heard from
the street were the shouts of the firemen fighting the blaze and the
rattle of the apparatus as it clattered up.
Hastily opening the window, Jack looked out into what, at first, seemed
to be a black void. The feeble stream of lamplight from the room,
however, presently revealed a wall opposite to him, pierced with
windows. One of these was immediately across from the casement out of
which he was gazing. The distance across the shaft did not appear to be
more than a few feet—possibly three or four. If he only could find some
way of spanning the shaft he might yet save himself!
He cast a rapid glance about the room. Its furniture was scanty enough
not to require a very long investigation to itemize it. There was a
rickety table, on which stood the smoky lamp, two decrepit chairs and
the frowsy cot. But none of these seemed to Jack to be what he wanted.
While he still hesitated he felt a crash beneath him. The house shook
and Jack knew that this betokened the fall of one of the lower floors.
At almost the same instant the panels of the door began to blister, and
smoke rolled into the room through a crack under the portal. The boy
could now hear distinctly also the roar and crackle of the flames, and
it was suffocatingly hot.
“I must do something and do it quick, too,” he exclaimed.
But what? He thrust his head out of the window and shouted at the top of
his voice. But above the roar and confusion in the street his feeble
cries did not travel far.
He looked about him despairingly. Was there nothing he could do? Nothing
to save himself from a fiery tomb?
All at once he gave a glad cry. He had seen something that gave him a
gleam of hope. From under the fusty blankets on the bed he had just
glimpsed the protruding end of a plank. It gave him an inspiration.
Throwing back the greasy coverings of the cot he found that it was
formed by placing planks across trestles, and one of these boards was
just about the right length for the purpose to which he designed to put
it.
His weakness forgotten in his excitement, the boy lugged the board
across the room and thrust it out of the window. It just reached the
opposite casement, resting its outer end on the sill beyond by a
perilously narrow margin. But it was his only means of escape, and Jack
didn’t hesitate an instant to clamber up on the board and begin the
passage across the shaft.
Before he set out to crawl across his frail bridge he cast a backward
glance into the room he was leaving. As he did so the flames burst
through the panels of the door, and he was conscious of a puff of heat
like that from the open door of an oven.
As he moved along and neared its center, the board cracked and bent
ominously. It was not particularly thick, and Jack was no lightweight.
The cold perspiration stood out on his face as he thought of what would
happen if his slender support was to snap under him.
He did not know how great a fall he would have, but was well convinced
that a tumble from the plank would mean death, swift and terrible. In
this frame of mind he crept on. It seemed an eternity before he grasped
the other window sill.
The boy had just gripped the projecting ledge of stone with his hands
when he felt his support drop from under him. The swaying motion
imparted to it as he crept across had caused the end that rested on the
opposite window sill to jounce off. The next instant Jack was hanging by
his finger tips, with space under his boot soles.
He tried to draw himself up, but, weakened as he was by ill treatment,
he was unable to do so, and, worse still, he felt his strength fast
leaving him. A cold sweat of horror broke out on him. Was he doomed to a
terrible death, after all?
All at once his foot encountered something. It was a water pipe running
up the side of the house and passing close by the window, to the sill of
which he was clinging with such desperation. If he could only reach that
pipe he might be able to save himself yet. The thought put new strength
into his rapidly weakening grip, and he began to creep along the sill
toward the pipe by moving his hands alternately. It was a fearful
strain, and anyone in less perfect physical condition than the young
inventor could never have done it. But do it somehow Jack did, and at
last, by reaching out with one hand, he was able to grip the pipe.
Then came the most perilous part of his whole enterprise. He must hold
on to the pipe with one hand while he let go of the sill with the other.
And then, too, there was a chance that the pipe might not be securely
fastened and might give way under his weight.
But it was no time to hesitate. In fact, every second his strength was
oozing from him. With a prayer on his lips Jack clutched the pipe and
made the swing. To this day he cannot tell how it happened, but he
succeeded somehow in landing on the pipe, gripping it firmly with both
hands. It was then a comparatively easy matter for the boy to draw
himself up to the window sill and scramble over it.
He found himself in a cool, pitch-dark place, only faintly illumined by
the flames from the house across the shaft. Jack felt in his pocket and
was delighted to find that he had some matches there, although his money
had vanished—the prudent Radcliff having picked his pockets while the
lad lay unconscious in the secret recess.
He struck one of these matches, and as it flared up it showed him that
he was in a large bare room with a pile of sacks in one corner and some
barrels. The place was evidently a storehouse of some kind, but the boy
did not stop to investigate much. Instead, he crossed to a door and gave
the handle a tug. It refused to yield.
“It’s locked,” groaned Jack, tears almost rising to his eyes in his
disappointment.
He beat on the portal and shouted with all his might, but no answer
came. In fact, had he known it, he was in a warehouse in which nobody
lived. At last, tired out by all he had gone through, the boy desisted
from his efforts to attract attention. Thoroughly exhausted, he lit
another of his precious matches and made his way to the pile of sacks.
He sank down on them, noticing that they exhaled a pleasant aroma. He
wondered what it was. Presently he realized,—coffee.
The half-starved, wholly worn out lad did not hesitate to help himself
from one of the sacks that was open. But coffee beans are not very
satisfactory fare, even to a half-famished boy.
Besides, Jack was thirsty. His mouth and tongue felt dry as lime kilns.
Small wonder that, in his extremity, the boy thought he should go mad.
Luckily, however, exhausted nature asserted herself, and the deep sleep
of total fatigue prevented his dwelling on his misfortunes.