CHAPTER VIII
A Single Chance
Intently for a moment we listened without moving; but there came no sound of alarm from without, nothing but the occasional voices of the guards. And now we grasped another of the metal bunk-supports, and wrenched its metal strip loose from the wall with another tremendous effort. We had in our hands two metal strips, each of some three feet in length. These we now bent swiftly into two L's or right angles of equal sides, using all our combined strength on each to bend the strong metal. Then, swiftly loosening the long, strong leather belts that criss-crossed over our black air-jackets, we formed of them swiftly two leather ropes ten feet in length. Each of these we attached to one of our metal L's, making each fast to one of the jagged, broken ends of one of the bent strips. Then, panting from our swift efforts, we stood erect, and moved toward our little window.
Night lay over the world now, and from our window we saw the cities illumined by their lights stretching out to the horizon. On the landing plazas of the air-city beneath us rested the great European Federation battle-fleet. In the plaza directly beneath us, that which surrounded the base of our great electrostatic tower, there rested but a few score of cruisers, those of the commanders who were now at the headquarters inside the great tower's base. The plaza was practically deserted; for it was the evening meal. For a moment I stood there at the window, gazing out over that tremendous mass of giant air-cities. Then, summoning all my courage, I flung my right leg over the window's base, through its opening.
Sitting astride that opening, while Hilliard watched anxiously behind me, I placed the metal angle I carried upon the flat metal sill of the window, one end of its angle catching on the sill while the other end, to which my leather rope was fastened, pointed straight downward toward the great plaza a thousand feet beneath. Then, holding to that leather rope, I slid out of the window's opening; and hung by my hands from the slender rope with only empty air between me and the plaza far below. Tensely I swung there in that moment, but the metal angle caught in the sill held my weight. And so, sliding down the leather rope fastened to it, I felt my feet strike in a moment against the sill of the window below. Another moment and I stood upon that sill, crouching within that window's opening.
The window in which I crouched opened into one of the great upper corridors of the electrostatic tower; but I knew that to venture back into the building, swarming now with guards, was to meet death, nor did I plan to do so. Giving my leather rope a twitch, I worked loose the angle resting on the sill above; and, when that dropped toward me, I placed it on the sill on which I stood, and the next moment was sliding down to the window below. And now above me Hilliard, using his own metal angle and leather rope in the same way, was following me, was sliding from window to window after me, down the smooth side of the mighty pinnacle to the street far below. Down—down—like two strange insects we crept downward from window to window. None in the streets below glimpsed the two tiny shapes crawling down the mighty tower's side; for the darkness had deepened now, and in the plaza directly beneath us there were none of the crowds that swirled elsewhere.
Our greatest danger, indeed, was that we would be seen by someone inside the tower as we swung down from window to window; and twice I was forced to hang for a few seconds from my leather rope above a window inside which I could hear voices. Yet still down and down we swung, praying that the regular line of windows in the static-tower's side, extended unbroken clear to its base; for otherwise we were lost. Down and down we went, moving more hastily now despite the awful hazards of our progress; so hastily that once Hilliard's hook or angle slipped halfway out from the sill upon which it hung, and all but precipitated him down to death before he could slide into the window beneath him.
But now we were within the last dozen levels of the plaza's surface, and were down with all the eagerness of renewed hope. For in the plaza there beneath us there lay still the unguarded cruisers, their officers and crews gathered in the great tower down which we were creeping. Another level—another—and down we swung through the dusk, in such a descent as surely man never had made before. The plaza was close beneath, the window of our cell now far above. From far around that plaza, from Berlin and from all the air-cities about, we heard the great hum of final preparations being made. I knew they were ready now to sally forth upon their gigantic attack. But we were within the last few levels of the plaza, now, swinging down with mad haste from window to window toward its smooth surface. And then it was, when we were within a few yards of that surface, that I heard a dim cry from far above.
"Down now with all your strength, Hilliard!" I cried to my friend above me. "They've come to our cell after us—are giving the alarm!"