"Take a breath."
Ronicky obeyed; the air was beginning to fill with the pungent and unmistakable odor of burning wood!
Chapter Twenty-one
The Miracle
No great intelligence was needed to understand the meaning of it. Fernand, having trapped his game, was now about to kill it. He could suffocate the two with smoke, blown into the tunnel, and make them rush blindly out. The moment they appeared, dazed and uncertain, the revolvers of half a dozen gunmen would be emptied into them.
"It's like taking a trap full of rats," said Ronicky bitterly, "and shaking them into a pail of water. Let's go back and see what we can."
They had only to turn the corner of the tunnel to be sure. Fernand had had the door of the tunnel slid noiselessly open, then, into the tunnel itself, smoking, slowly burning, pungent pieces of pine wood had been thrown, having been first soaked in oil, perhaps. The tunnel was rapidly filling with smoke, and through the white drifts of it they looked into the lighted cellar beyond. They would run out at last, gasping for breath and blinded by the smoke, to be shot down in a perfect light. So much was clear.
"Now back to the wall and try to find that door," said Ronicky.
Jerry had already turned. In a moment they were back and tearing with their fingers at the sham wall, kicking loose fragments with their feet.
All the time, while they cleared a larger and larger space, they searched feverishly with the electric torch for some sign of a knob which would indicate a door, or some button or spring which might be used to open it. But there was nothing, and in the meantime the smoke was drifting back, in more and more unendurable clouds.