Buckhart needed no assistance, nor did Dick, who swiftly followed him.
Assouan closed the trapdoor behind him.
“Wherever are we?” inquired the Texan.
The black man explained that they were in a building that stood on the opposite side of a narrow street at the back of the German hotel.
They had actually crept through a passage that led beneath this street.
This passage had been made years before, by the former owner of the hotel, who feared a repetition of the massacre of 1860, and wished a means of escaping from the building in case it should be assailed by a mob. It was doubtful if the present proprietor knew of the existence of the passage.
The old sheik, Ras al Had, had chanced by accident to discover the passage while storing goods in the building into which it led from the hotel. At the present time this building was used as a storehouse. The room in which they found themselves was poorly lighted. They were again amid boxes and bales of goods.
Outside, between them and the hotel, they heard the sound of many voices. The mob was there, but the soldiers were still holding the crowd in check.
“My goodness!” murmured Professor Gunn. “It seems to me that we’re still in a nasty scrape. We haven’t escaped.”
Without a word, the black man led the way to another part of the building. A heavy door faced them in one dim corner. This door Assouan knew how to open, but he paused and listened some moments before unfastening it.