“He’s taking a long time to come to,” he growled; “I hope I didn’t hit him too hard.”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Radcliff, a rather scared look coming over his countenance.
“Why, that—that——Hark! What’s that?”
Somewhere below in the house somebody was shouting something at the top of his lungs. What was it, that alarmed cry, coming in that high-pitched voice?
Radcliff stepped to the door and opened it. The cry was plain enough then. It was being caught up and echoed by a score of frightened voices throughout the tumble-down tenement.
“Fire! fire! fire!”
On the bottom floor of the rickety old tenement a lamp had exploded. Already the flames were spreading to the stairways.
“We’ll have to get out by the roof!” exclaimed Radcliff, in a nervous tone; “this place will burn like a haystack once that fire gets a good start.”
“That’s right! Come on, we’ve no time to lose. Here, you,” and Jake Rook seized Ralph roughly by the wrist and began dragging him out of the room.
In the meantime Radcliff dived under the cot and secured the model of the vanishing gun machine and the papers which had been hidden there. Having done this, he started after Jake Rook. Already the street below was full of shouts, and the acrid reek of smoke was filling the hallway.