“Yes. They are at this moment in the Flying Road Racer’s locker, in charge of Tom and Ned,” was the reply.
As Jack spoke they all, by mutual consent, rose and made for the door.
“I shall be glad to get to the air,” remarked Professor Chadwick.
“Yes; it is insufferably hot in here,” agreed Mr. Jesson. “I had not noticed the heat so much while Jack was talking; but now,—phew! It’s like a furnace.”
As he spoke. Jack flung the door open. The next instant he staggered back, the hot blood in his veins frozen with horror.
A rush of air, hot and arid as a blast from a coke oven, struck him in the face. A great puff of smoke followed.
The room below was a vast furnace of red flame. In falling, one of the negro’s lanterns had overturned and rolled against the bales of dried hemp. All the time they had been talking the fire had been waxing more and more furious.
By this time the lower part of the stairway was in flames, and, as Jack held the door open, a tongue of fire, sucked upward by the draft, shot hungrily toward him.
He slammed the door instantly. But the heat of the seething furnace below rendered the air almost unbreathable.
It looked as if, in the very moment of their triumph, the adventurers were doomed to death in the burning building. Trapped and helpless, for an instant they were deprived of words. Was this to be their appalling destiny, their fate,—to be roasted alive without a chance of escape?