CHAPTER XII.
"STOP WHERE YOU ARE!"
It is a curious fact that most absolutely overwhelming predicamentsdo not at first strike in upon their victims with the crushing forcethat would be imagined. This was evidenced by Herc's rejoinder to Ned'sstartling information.
"Great ginger!" he exclaimed, "I guess we're in just the place where webelong. If we hadn't gone blundering into that trap we wouldn't havebeen in this fix, and if we hadn't----"
"Left the farm and enlisted in the navy we wouldn't have been hereeither," retorted Ned.
A scrutiny of their prison confirmed Ned in his first judgment ofits character. The walls, though padded, were solid, and seeminglyimpenetrable. The window was far too high up to be reached, and evenif they could have got to it, it could be seen that the steel barswere set solidly into the masonry. The door, which was examined inits turn, proved to be likewise of solid oak. No lock appeared on it.Doubtless this was to prevent any of the unfortunates formerly confinedin 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 openingsome six inches square. The thought suggested itself to Ned that itmight have been used once as a means for giving food or drink to theincurables confined within during their violent spells.
He opened the flap and thrust his hand through. A vague hope hadentered his mind that he might be able to reach up as far as the boltson 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 theexasperating experience of being able, by the utmost exertion, to touchthe bottom of the bolt with his finger-tips, but that was all. Eventhen he had to shove his arm so far through the hole that it was grazedand sore when he withdrew it.
"W-e-l-l?" said Herc slowly, as they sank down side by side on a sortof 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 inone of the _Manhattan's_ air-tight magazines we would have just aboutas 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 youthink they'll starve us to death?"
Barren of hope as the situation appeared, Ned could not help smiling atHerc's woebegone tone.
"They'd hardly dare to do that," he rejoined; "this is the twentiethcentury, and such things as law and order prevail. No, I guess theyhave some sort of trickery on hand with which we might interfere, andthey mean to keep us locked up here till they have carried out theirrascally plans."
"Talking of plans, did they take back the ones of the pontoonaeroplane?"
"No," exclaimed Ned, brightening, "thank goodness that's one thing theyseem to have forgotten. Anyhow I suppose they know they have us attheir 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 blacknessof their prison, for Ned, anxious to reserve it for emergencies, hadextinguished the electric torch. Neither of them was a nervous sort ofyouth, but the long vigil in the dark was enough to get on anybody'snerves.
"This is certainly a tough situation," remarked Ned after a time. Hespoke more for the sake of hearing his own voice than for any novelidea the words might convey.
"Not giving up, are you, Ned?" inquired Herc.
"Giving up?" grated out the elder Dreadnought Boy, "I'm like PaulJones--I've just begun to fight."
"When did Paul Jones say that?" asked Herc.
"Why, that time that the British captain, Pearson, peered through thesmoke surrounding his majesty's ship _Serapis_ and the little _BonhommeRichard_.
"Pearson hailed Paul Jones and shouted out, 'Have you struck yourcolors yet?'
"It was then that Paul Jones sent back that answer. Those were grandwords, Herc. They ought to be framed and placed on board every vesselin 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. "Timeafter time British frigates hemmed him in. They thought they had himtrapped. But every time he slipped through their fingers and resumedhis career as a sea tiger. With his little bit of a junk-shop fleet hedid more to establish the name of Americans as sea fighters than anyman 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 savePaul Jones from his country's ingratitude. Why, it was a hundred yearsor more before his bones were discovered in an obscure spot in Paris,where he died in poverty, and were brought back to this country andburied with the honors they deserved."
"Humph!" observed Herc, "that was a pretty shabby way to treat one ofour biggest naval heroes. Wish we had him here now. What was that oldanecdote you told me once about Paul burning his way out of a prisonsome place?"
"Oh, that!" laughed Ned. "I guess that was a bit of imagination on thepart 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 Britishvessel. They thought they had him safe. But he ripped out the lining ofstuffed cushions of the captain's sofas and burned a way out through aport hole that they thought was securely locked. I read it in an oldbook I picked up in Philadelphia, but I guess the book was more fictionthan fact."
Another silence ensued, and then Herc spoke. He took up theconversation 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 haveplayed."
"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 thatmassive 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 burnourselves 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 wetried to burn the door down, which is, I suppose, what you are drivingat. Another thing--how about matches?"
"I've got lots of those. Now see here, Ned," went on Hercenthusiastically, "my plan may seem just moonshine, but it's worthtrying. 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 fuelthrough it and out into the passage. My idea is that the flames willrise against the surface of the door, and if we make them hot enoughwill burn off the bolts without setting the whole door on fire. The oakis 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 likeit--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 firewould burn out the floor of the passage and set the place on firebefore 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 aswe came along," rejoined Herc in a quiet voice.
"Herc, you ought to be director of the Smithsonian Institute or--orsomething big," declared Ned admiringly. "It does begin to look as ifwe might have a chance to get out, after all. At any rate, it's worthtry
ing. It will give us something to do."
"Of course it will," responded Herc cheerfully; "and now, if you'llswitch on that light of yours, we'll start pulling the materials forour fire off these walls."
It didn't take long to rip out a great pile of the batting and shavingswith which the walls were stuffed. These were thrust through the holein the bottom of the door into the passage outside as fast as theywere pulled out. At last the pile was declared large enough, and, witha big heap in reserve for use when the other had burned out, the boysprepared to light the mass of inflammable stuff.
It blazed up fiercely when the match was applied, but, of course, as itwas outside the door in the concrete passage, the flames did not botherthe boys or imperil the building. On their hands and knees the twoyoung prisoners crouched, feeding the flames assiduously when theyshowed signs of dying down. There was plenty of fuel, and a roaringfire was maintained.
The remaining bolt tore loose from its blackenedfoundations.]
All at once there was a soft thud outside the door, and somethingdropped into the flames. It was one of the heavy bolts which had tornloose from its charred and weakened fastenings. A few minutes lateranother crash announced that the second one had fallen.
The lads waited a few minutes, till the fire died down, and then, withbeating 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 thetwo 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 tellingbut 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 doorhas been locked and the place vacated, we're going to have a hard timeto get out, even now."
"That's right. Well, we'd better start on our tour of exploration rightaway."
Guided by Ned, with his torch ready for instant darkening, the two ladsbegan to thread the maze of corridors and passages. They had been doingthis for several minutes, and were beginning to get rather bewildered,when Ned stopped suddenly just as they entered a long corridor piercedwith doors, with the same monotonous regularity as the others. Heextinguished the light in the wink of an eye, and drew Herc swiftlyinto the embrasure of a doorway as he did so.
Far down the corridor a footstep had sounded, and another light hadflashed. 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!"