“Yes,” replied Ned. “It is true that they went into a chamber over there, but the door is locked on the other side.”
“We’ll soon remedy that,” Jack observed, and in a short time the boys were pounding away at the plank door with a heavy sledge which had evidently been used in cutting up the gas-pipe.
When the door was down a narrow passage was revealed. This, followed by the boys, led to an opening at the bottom of the knoll on which the temple had been built. The men who had operated the bomb factory had escaped, every one of them, and Ned turned away in disgust at the luck which seemed to pursue him.
“Every man of them got away,” he grumbled.
“What you kicking about?” demanded Jack, pulling away at the pile of pipe which was evidently the makings of a supply of bombs. “You captured their artillery.”
“They can make more,” Ned replied.
“And the maps he found,” Jimmie cried. “Maps showing how to blow up a Gatun dam and a New York newspaper office. All marked out. Just like lessons on blowing things up from a correspondence school.”
Frank was all attention immediately. He had heard something like that before that day, and asked a score of questions in a breath.
When the story of the drawings was told the boys gathered about Ned while he pointed out the lines drawn in what purported to be a sketch of the basement of the Daily Planet building. Frank declared that the dots made in the drawing were located exactly at steel and concrete foundation points. The plan of destruction had evidently been prepared by some one familiar with the structure.
“It strikes me,” Frank said, after a moment’s inspection of the drawings, “that we’d better get out of here and reach a cable office. One of the plotters was kind enough to tell me what they were about to do, and this looks like they mean to keep their word, for once in their lives, at least.”