"Merciful God!" cried Coquenil in a flash of understanding, "it's a blower!"
"A blower?" repeated the girl.
M. Paul turned his face upward and listened attentively. "No doubt of it! It's sucking through an air shaft—up there—in the ceiling."
"I—I don't understand."
"He's forcing a draught from that room to this one. He has started a blower, I tell you, and——"
"What is a blower?" put in Alice.
At her frightened tone Coquenil calmed himself and answered gently: "It's like a big electric fan, it's drawing air out of this room very fast, with a powerful suction, and I'm afraid—unless——"
Just then there came a sharp pop followed by a hissing noise as if some one were breathing in air through shut teeth.
"There goes the first one! Come over here!" He bent toward the logs, searching for something. "Ah, here it is! Do you feel the air blowing through toward us? The blower has sucked out one of our cloth plugs. There goes another!" he said, as the popping sound was repeated. "And another! It's all off with our barricade, little girl!"
"You—you mean the fire will come through now?" she gasped. He could hear her teeth chattering and feel her whole body shaking in terror.