[CHAPTER IX.]
THE SITUATION CHANGED—OLD SPICER STARTS FOR NEW YORK.
Barney Hawks stood just behind Jake Klinkhammer, and a little to the right of him.
As he uttered the great detective's name, the light he carried dropped from his hand and almost instantly expired, leaving the place in total darkness.
The next moment he grasped Jake by the arm, and whispering the single word "burrow" in his ear, slipped around the bunks and disappeared.
Old Spicer fired two shots and Morgan one.
At the second shot, Jake Klinkhammer fell, with a dismal groan. And hastily calling upon George to light their own lamp, the old detective stooped down to raise up the supposed wounded man.
To his surprise, he could not find him, and the lamp which George by this time succeeded in lighting, revealed the fact that he too had disappeared.
An earnest and vigorous search for the murderers was now begun; but after a quarter of an hour had passed, not the slightest signs of them had been discovered.
"Where can they have escaped to so suddenly?" exclaimed George, impatiently. "Surely they did not get through the Ernst basement."