“Somehow!” he thought, and he went to rubbing his back as well as he could against the hard cellar floor.
He thought he might wear the cords through in time.
In time—good Heaven! would there be time?
What was that he smelled?
An enemy more fearful than the bullets of assassins.
He understood now what he had been doing when the man had been feeling along the way.
The villain had been hunting for the gas jet.
He had found it and turned the cock “full on!”
The close cellar was filling rapidly with the poisonous stuff.