CHAPTER XX
The Secret of the Ruins
Blank despair was written on the faces of the Professor and his party as columns of suffocating smoke were swept into their quarters; for all realised that in a very short space of time they would be smothered. More than that, the flames had now got such a hold of the bales of straw and fodder that the heat was terrible, driving every member of the party into the farthest corner, and even causing the enemy outside hastily to retreat up the stairway. And there, at the summit, looking down into the excavations which exposed this small portion of the ancient ruins they gloated over the foreign devils and their helpers, shrieking in their mad delight, and bawling every insult that their degraded minds could think of.
'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?'