CHAPTER XI.
FROM ONE PERIL TO ANOTHER.
“Go into that house again!” commanded Nick. “I want to look through it. And you’ll go with me.”
“What for?”
“You know what for,” thundered Nick. “You have my assistant in there, Chickering Carter. I’m going to get him out. Come on!” he continued, more fiercely than ever, as he waved his pistol. “Any hesitation, and I swear I will shoot the pair of you. I ought to do so, anyhow, for your treason to Prince Marcos.”
“What have you to do with Prince Marcos?” snarled Miguel. “The politics of Joyalita are no concern of yours.”
“Breaking the law in New York or New Jersey is very much a concern of mine. I have enough against you now to hold you. If any harm comes to my man, you will be responsible.”
He had jumped out of his boat to the stone sill of the door into the warehouse, and was close to the two rascals.
“Go in first, and I will follow!”
He prodded his gun against the chest of Miguel, and there was a look in the detective’s eye that would have told any one it was dangerous to play with him. But Miguel did not give way.
“I’m not going in there again,” he growled.
“Yes, you will. I——”
Nick Carter stopped. He had caught the steady thump of an engine, and he remembered that he had heard the sound himself when a prisoner in the cellar.
It had stopped when he made his escape. But it had been set going again.
The detective did not hesitate any longer. He pushed Miguel ahead of him, at the same time pointing one of his pistols at Don Solado.
“Show me the place! Show it to me, quick!” he shouted. “I know it is the cellar. But how do you get down to it? Quick!”
Only the knowledge that Chick was in deadly peril within a few yards of him, and that if he took the time to find out for himself how to reach his prison, it might be too late, prevented Nick Carter from shooting Miguel dead on the spot.
“I’ll show you!” volunteered Solado.
“Fool!” mumbled Miguel, in too low a tone for Nick Carter to hear.
“Where is the door?” demanded Nick.
“Here! In this corner, behind these barrels!” answered Solado. “Here is the key. It is barred outside, too.”
Nick began to tear away the barrels, taking no notice of Solado or Miguel. He had something more important to engage his attention just then.
The deadly fumes of ammonia were coming from the chinks of the cellar, and, as he turned the key, kicked away the bar, and pulled the door open, they came pouring out in a volume that staggered him for a moment.
“Chick!” he called.
There was no answer.
Nick Carter turned the powerful gleam of his flash light into the gloomy depths, and a low cry of horror broke from him.
Lying on the floor, against the wall, his limbs contorted and his face buried in his arms, as if he had resisted the deadly gas as long as he could, was Chick.
It was not necessary for Nick Carter to see the face to know who it was. He would have recognized the general appearance of his beloved first assistant even if he had not known him by his clothes.
“Chick!” he repeated, in an agonized groan, as he pressed a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. “Chick! Keep your mouth covered!”
“Chief!”
The response came in a far-away gasp, as if it were almost the last effort the speaker was capable of making.
It was enough for Nick Carter.
Indeed, he had not waited for a reply. Even while he spoke to Chick he had begun to descend the steep ladder in the corner of the cellar.
With a bound he crossed the floor and picked up his assistant in his arms.
“Keep your mouth covered!” mumbled Nick Carter, through his handkerchief.
It was instinct that made Chick press his two hands over his mouth.
Nick crawled along, keeping as low as he could to avoid at least some of the strength of the poisonous ammonia.
The engine thudded unseen in another compartment of the big cellar, pumping more of the gas from the generator to the storage tank, whence some demoniac villainy had arranged for it to escape.
“This will be all for Solado and Miguel,” thought Nick, as he half carried, half dragged, Chick across the floor.
He had reached the bottom of the ladder, when a loud, derisive laugh overhead came to his ears. Then, with a bang, the door closed!
Instantly Nick dropped at full length, taking Chick with him.
He wanted a moment to think, and it was essential that he should inhale as little of the ammonia as possible while he decided what to do.
The situation was a terrifying one. To a man less courageous than Nick Carter, it might have appeared hopeless.
“The window!” he muttered. “I know how I got out of the other cellar, by Patsy helping me from the outside. This time I’ll have to get it open by my own efforts.”
He drew from his pocket the heavy jackknife without which he never went out. Included in its tools was a miniature brace and bit. He fitted this for use as he crawled toward the window.
With his handkerchief tied over his mouth and nose, to keep out as much of the gas he could, Nick got his brace and bit ready for action and pulled himself to his feet.
A few seconds of work bored a hole through the wood. It was old and rotten, and the bit was keen and highly tempered.
The hole was by the side of a nail, whose point Nick had discerned coming through the wood.
“Two more holes, at the other nails, and we’ll be through,” he muttered. “If only I can hold out so long!”
It was a narrow squeak. But when a man is fighting for his life, he’ll keep on against odds, no matter what sort of contest he may have on his hands.
Just as Nick felt that he could not bear the awful pressure of the gas on his lungs another instant, he pushed the boards out of the opening.
As the ammonia poured out, a rush of fresh air came in.
The detective drew it into his system with a joyful gratitude, such as he had seldom felt in all his adventurous life.
Only for a second did he stand there, however. Chick was lying on the floor, and though, in that position, he had not been affected so strongly by the poison as he would have been if standing up straight, it had rendered him entirely unconscious.
Taking up his assistant in his strong arms, Nick lifted him so that his head rested on the stone ledge, where he got the full benefit of the cool night air from the salty waters.
“This is all right so far as it goes!” muttered the detective. “But I don’t want to swim. I’d have to hold Chick up in the water, too. He is all in for the present.”
He stared out into the gloom, but nothing could he make out except the dim sky line of the rushes and the banks of heavy clouds which obscured the stars over in the east.
It was a desolate scene.
So far as he could discern, there were no boats in the neighborhood, and for a moment he heard no sound of voices.
Then he caught the sharp accents of Patsy, commanding Pet Carlin to keep still. This was followed by a growling oath that might have been the utterance either of Larry Dugan or Foxey Irwin.
“Patsy has all he can attend to,” decided Nick. “He’s waiting for me to come out. I’ll have to bring him around to this side. There is nothing else for it, although some of those blackguards are liable to jump him if he settles down to row.”
Nick actually had his mouth open to call to his wide-awake second assistant, when a crash that might have meant the blowing up of the whole building stopped him.
The sound began with a swish such as often precedes the boom of an explosion of certain kinds of chemicals.
It was followed immediately by a heaven-splitting cr-r-rack, and then by the thunderous letting go of what might have been one of the heaviest guns known to modern ordnance.
Simultaneously, the big wooden warehouse rocked on its foundations, and Chick fell from the window ledge back to the cellar.
Down went Nick to the floor after him. He had only just got there, and placed his hands on the clothing of his assistant, when another explosion, even more terrifying than the first, sent the stone-wall foundations scattering in all directions.
Nick found himself hemmed in by heaps of splintered wood, while the upper part of the building, caving in one side, formed an arch over him that threatened to collapse at any moment.
“Chick!” he cried. “Where are you?”
There was no answer. He had not expected any.
His assistant had slipped from his grasp at the second explosion, and the general disturbance had separated them. In the heaps of débris it was impossible for Nick to see him at once.
“Heaven preserve us!” muttered the detective. “I’ve got to find him!”
Outside the building he could hear Patsy shouting to him, while the oaths of the prisoners, as they commanded Patsy to get the boat farther away from the destroyed warehouse, told plainly enough that his second assistant had special troubles of his own.
“Patsy!” cried Nick, at the top of his voice. “Stay where you are! I’ll bring Chick!”
He did not know whether his voice had carried to Patsy or not. Indeed, he had no time to think about it, for suddenly, with a vicious roar, a blue-and-yellow tongue of flame shot up from the middle of the great heaps of timbers about him, and through the caved-in roof overhead.
The warehouse was on fire!