Following on the heels of his man, a hundred and fifty feet in air, Johnny came at last to an open balcony above which a great cupola reared itself to the sky. In his mad fear the firebug had already begun mounting the stair in the cupola. As for Johnny, he paused to consider. It was well that he should.
As he looked down a sudden shudder shook his form like a chill. The fire, leaping across a roof more than a hundred feet below him, was already licking at the wooden foundation of the very tower on which he stood. Even in a vain attempt to retrace his steps, a whiff of smoke borne up from below told him that in a brief space of time the tower would be a roaring chimney of flames. What was to be done? Leaving the unfortunate culprit in the cupola to his well deserved fate, whatever it might be, he turned his every thought to ways of escape. There appeared but one, and that all but impossible. But there was no choice. Sitting calmly down, he pulled off his shoes, then climbing over the railing, disappeared at a point directly above one corner of the tower.
While Tillie McFadden, with no further harm than a few scratches and bruises, was making her way to the ground, Pant was performing what seemed a mad feat. He was battling his way upward on the wheel. Here he gripped a rod to swing outward and upward, there climbed straight up where a real cat must have failed, and then, leaping quite free from any support, flew through the air to grip a rod ten feet away.
Up, up, up he climbed until, utterly exhausted, he dropped in the box occupied by the girl.
For ten seconds he lay there panting. The fire, roaring like a volcano, sent flames two hundred feet in air, scorching their cheeks and showering them with sparks. In a moment Pant was himself again.
Snatching the girl’s cape from her, he consigned it to the flames.
“Your arms about my neck, your feet about my waist,” he ordered, “and down we go.”
He was instantly obeyed, and down indeed they went. Though that girl may live two lifetimes, never again will she experience a ride like that. With the breath of the fire beating upon them, they swung from rod to rod, shot through space, glided and slid until with a final terrible bump, they came to solid earth and went racing away after the fast disappearing throng.
CHAPTER XXV
THE HUMAN SPIDER
Strangely enough, as Johnny crept over the railing that hung out over one hundred and fifty feet of empty air, he chanced to think of the black bag beneath the bed in his room.