It meant sure death for the men imprisoned there. The top of the pit was above the grating. They would be drowned like mice in a wire trap.
Water began to come through the hose. Harry seized the end of the rubber tube and twisted it. It was pulled from his grasp by Birdie Crull, who stood above.
Crull arranged the hose so that it did not pass through the grating. The bars were too close together to reach through.
The water began to rise in the pit. It was simply a question of time before it would be above the heads of the helpless victims.
Neither man cried out. They whispered grimly in the darkness of the pit, seeking to devise some plan of action.
The water reached their ankles; their knees; their waists. Still they muttered, suggesting hopeless ideas to overcome this menace.
The water was up to their shoulders. Its rise had been slow; a few minutes more still remained.
The men in the cavern above waited for the fateful moment.
Birdie Crull was laughing. Blair Windsor’s face was sober. Both Vernon and Jerry appeared to be taking the affair in a matter-of-fact manner.
Old Isaac Coffran had retired to a corner. He was out of sight, behind the printing press. His face displayed a fiendish grin, as he waited in the darkness. He did not care to observe these trivial preliminaries.