"STOP WHERE YOU ARE!"
It is a curious fact that most absolutely overwhelming predicaments
do not at first strike in upon their victims with the crushing force
that would be imagined. This was evidenced by Herc's rejoinder to Ned's
startling information.
"Great ginger!" he exclaimed, "I guess we're in just the place where we
belong. If we hadn't gone blundering into that trap we wouldn't have
been in this fix, and if we hadn't----"
"Left the farm and enlisted in the navy we wouldn't have been here
either," retorted Ned.
A scrutiny of their prison confirmed Ned in his first judgment of
its character. The walls, though padded, were solid, and seemingly
impenetrable. The window was far too high up to be reached, and even
if they could have got to it, it could be seen that the steel bars
were set solidly into the masonry. The door, which was examined in
its turn, proved to be likewise of solid oak. No lock appeared on it.
Doubtless this was to prevent any of the unfortunates formerly confined
in the place from injuring themselves on projecting bolts.
At the bottom of the door, however, a peculiar contrivance appeared.
It was a small, hinged flap, which, when raised, revealed an opening
some six inches square. The thought suggested itself to Ned that it
might have been used once as a means for giving food or drink to the
incurables confined within during their violent spells.
He opened the flap and thrust his hand through. A vague hope had
entered his mind that he might be able to reach up as far as the bolts
on the outside. If he could have done this he could have opened them.
But, as might have been expected, this was not feasible. Ned had the
exasperating experience of being able, by the utmost exertion, to touch
the bottom of the bolt with his finger-tips, but that was all. Even
then he had to shove his arm so far through the hole that it was grazed
and sore when he withdrew it.
"W-e-l-l?" said Herc slowly, as they sank down side by side on a sort
of bench, padded like the rest of the interior of the place.
"W-e-l-l?" retorted Ned, "so far as I can see, if we were sealed up in
one of the _Manhattan's_ air-tight magazines we would have just about
as good a chance of getting out as we have of escaping from this place."
"Same here," agreed Herc woefully. "What are we going to do? Do you
think they'll starve us to death?"
Barren of hope as the situation appeared, Ned could not help smiling at
Herc's woebegone tone.
"They'd hardly dare to do that," he rejoined; "this is the twentieth
century, and such things as law and order prevail. No, I guess they
have some sort of trickery on hand with which we might interfere, and
they mean to keep us locked up here till they have carried out their
rascally plans."
"Talking of plans, did they take back the ones of the pontoon
aeroplane?"
"No," exclaimed Ned, brightening, "thank goodness that's one thing they
seem to have forgotten. Anyhow I suppose they know they have us at
their mercy and can get them any time they want them."
"Reckon that's it," agreed Herc.
Silence ensued. The two boys sat side by side in the pitchy blackness
of their prison, for Ned, anxious to reserve it for emergencies, had
extinguished the electric torch. Neither of them was a nervous sort of
youth, but the long vigil in the dark was enough to get on anybody's
nerves.
"This is certainly a tough situation," remarked Ned after a time. He
spoke more for the sake of hearing his own voice than for any novel
idea the words might convey.
"Not giving up, are you, Ned?" inquired Herc.
"Giving up?" grated out the elder Dreadnought Boy, "I'm like Paul
Jones--I've just begun to fight."
"When did Paul Jones say that?" asked Herc.
"Why, that time that the British captain, Pearson, peered through the
smoke surrounding his majesty's ship _Serapis_ and the little _Bonhomme
Richard_.
"Pearson hailed Paul Jones and shouted out, 'Have you struck your
colors yet?'
"It was then that Paul Jones sent back that answer. Those were grand
words, Herc. They ought to be framed and placed on board every vessel
in Uncle Sam's navy."
"Yes, Paul Jones was a wonderful sea-fighter all right," agreed Herc,
"but I wonder what he'd have done if he'd been cooped up in here."
"Figured on some way of getting out," rejoined Ned promptly. "Time
after time British frigates hemmed him in. They thought they had him
trapped. But every time he slipped through their fingers and resumed
his career as a sea tiger. With his little bit of a junk-shop fleet he
did more to establish the name of Americans as sea fighters than any
man in the republic."
"But how about Ben Franklin, who advanced the money to buy the ships,
or at least saw that it was raised?" asked the practical Herc.
"Well, of course he helped," admitted Ned, "but even he couldn't save
Paul Jones from his country's ingratitude. Why, it was a hundred years
or more before his bones were discovered in an obscure spot in Paris,
where he died in poverty, and were brought back to this country and
buried with the honors they deserved."
"Humph!" observed Herc, "that was a pretty shabby way to treat one of
our biggest naval heroes. Wish we had him here now. What was that old
anecdote you told me once about Paul burning his way out of a prison
some place?"
"Oh, that!" laughed Ned. "I guess that was a bit of imagination on the
part of the writer. At any rate it isn't mentioned in the histories.
It was one time that they locked Paul Jones in the cabin of a British
vessel. They thought they had him safe. But he ripped out the lining of
stuffed cushions of the captain's sofas and burned a way out through a
port hole that they thought was securely locked. I read it in an old
book I picked up in Philadelphia, but I guess the book was more fiction
than fact."
Another silence ensued, and then Herc spoke. He took up the
conversation where it had been left off.
"It's worth trying," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"What's worth trying?" asked Ned, through the darkness.
"Why Paul Jones' trick--or rather the trick he is supposed to have
played."
"Oh, burning himself out of prison?"
"Yes."
"I don't see the connection with our case."
"Then you are a whole lot denser than I gave you credit for being."
"Thanks. But I see you've got an idea of some sort simmering in that
massive brain of yours. What is it?"
"Just this, that we duplicate the trick."
"By ginger, Herc, there's nothing slow about you. You mean that we burn
ourselves out of here?"
"That's just what I do. See any obstacles in the way?"
"A whole fleet of them. For one thing we'd suffocate ourselves if we
tried to burn the door down, which is, I suppose, what you are driving
at. Another thing--how about matches?"
"I've got lots of those. Now see here, Ned," went on Herc
enthusiastically, "my plan may seem just moonshine, but it's worth
trying. You know that little swinging trap at the bottom of the door?"
"Yes."
"Well, we can build our fire _outside_ the door by thrusting our fuel
through it and out into the passage. My idea is that the flames will
rise against the surface of the door, and if we make them hot enough
will burn off the bolts without setting the whole door on fire. The oak
is thick enough, I think, to remove all danger of that."
"Humph!" said Ned. "There's only one thing you haven't thought of,
Herc."
"What's that?"
"What are we going to build a fire with?"
"With the same stuff as Paul Jones did--or rather stuff somewhat like
it--the soft lining of these padded walls."
"Say, Herc, you're a wonder! I always said you had a great brain,"
cried Ned banteringly, "but hasn't it occurred to you that your fire
would burn out the floor of the passage and set the place on fire
before it would get the bolts hot enough to make them drop off?"
"It might if the floors and walls were not concrete. I noticed them as
we came along," rejoined Herc in a quiet voice.
"Herc, you ought to be director of the Smithsonian Institute or--or
something big," declared Ned admiringly. "It does begin to look as if
we might have a chance to get out, after all. At any rate, it's worth
trying. It will give us something to do."
"Of course it will," responded Herc cheerfully; "and now, if you'll
switch on that light of yours, we'll start pulling the materials for
our fire off these walls."
It didn't take long to rip out a great pile of the batting and shavings
with which the walls were stuffed. These were thrust through the hole
in the bottom of the door into the passage outside as fast as they
were pulled out. At last the pile was declared large enough, and, with
a big heap in reserve for use when the other had burned out, the boys
prepared to light the mass of inflammable stuff.
It blazed up fiercely when the match was applied, but, of course, as it
was outside the door in the concrete passage, the flames did not bother
the boys or imperil the building. On their hands and knees the two
young prisoners crouched, feeding the flames assiduously when they
showed signs of dying down. There was plenty of fuel, and a roaring
fire was maintained.
[Illustration: The remaining bolt tore loose from its blackened
foundations.]
All at once there was a soft thud outside the door, and something
dropped into the flames. It was one of the heavy bolts which had torn
loose from its charred and weakened fastenings. A few minutes later
another crash announced that the second one had fallen.
The lads waited a few minutes, till the fire died down, and then, with
beating hearts, they put their shoulders to the door.
"Heave!" roared Ned, and the next moment, under their united efforts,
the remaining bolt tore loose from its blackened foundations, and the
two Dreadnought Boys stood outside in the smoke-filled passage.
"Let's give three cheers!" cried Herc.
"Better be careful about making a noise," counselled Ned. "No telling
but some of those rascals may be hiding in the building somewhere."
"That's right," agreed Herc. "Another thing has occurred to me, too.
All the windows of this delightful place are barred, and if the door
has been locked and the place vacated, we're going to have a hard time
to get out, even now."
"That's right. Well, we'd better start on our tour of exploration right
away."
Guided by Ned, with his torch ready for instant darkening, the two lads
began to thread the maze of corridors and passages. They had been doing
this for several minutes, and were beginning to get rather bewildered,
when Ned stopped suddenly just as they entered a long corridor pierced
with doors, with the same monotonous regularity as the others. He
extinguished the light in the wink of an eye, and drew Herc swiftly
into the embrasure of a doorway as he did so.
Far down the corridor a footstep had sounded, and another light had
flashed. As they crouched in the darkness, prepared for any emergency,
a sudden voice sounded from the end of the corridor:
"Stop right where you are, or I'll fire!"