'I fear it looks like a case with us,' gasped the Professor, tying a handkerchief about his mouth and nose, an example which the others were swift to follow. 'We're in a horrible trap, with no way out of it, I fear.'
'Unless, monsieur, we could dash at the barrier and kick all the bales aside,' said Alphonse, coughing violently, for the exceeding pungency of the smoke made breathing difficult and speech next door to impossible. 'I am ready to make the attempt. It is better than being scorched here in this corner.'
At once he started forward, and with him Dick Cartwell, both eager to do something. But who could face such dense smoke, or the hot flames which poured in over the top of the barrier? Not Alphonse, even with all his dash and pluck. Nor Dick, with his reckless disregard of the consequences.
'It is sad but inevitable then,' declared Alphonse, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. 'Monsieur, I have the honour to bid you farewell. I lose a good and generous master.'
'And I a brave and willing servant. But, Alphonse, where is Monsieur David? I have not seen him since we retired from the barrier, and the smoke is so thick now over there that one can see nothing. Where is the lad? I begin to feel anxious.'
It was like the Professor to think of his comrades at such a time. But the question brought a shout from Dick.
'He's over here, sir,' he called out 'As soon as they fired the bales I saw him dart back into the room, and couldn't imagine why. Running away from the thick of an attack isn't like him. David, where are you?'
'Here,' came the crisp and half-stifled answer, while the figure of our hero loomed darkly before them, his face muffled in the half of a garment which he had secured from somewhere. 'Come along this wall of the room with me. I realised when they fired that heap of stuff that our position would be untenable, and went to the men who have been working. They have managed to break a hole through the wall, and one has just slipped to the other side. Of course, if the place is filled with sand we can do nothing. I have hopes, though, that it will be clear, for how else could he have been able to pass through.'
Choking and coughing the party crept along the wall, keeping close to the base; for the smoke rose to the ceiling, and the latter being of great height gave it space in which to distribute itself. But in spite of that, the supply of air down below was small, to say the least of it. They had hardly proceeded more than ten feet when there came a cry of triumph from a point just in front of them, while the click of a metal instrument was heard.