Part 15 (1/2)

”Then this riot we've created saved him from running his head into a noose. That's something. But what did he say? What did he say?”

”He ... he rang up to let us know his escape route. He tried before, but the line was blocked. That other call. It ... it's along a telegraph cable that crosses the ca.n.a.l.”

Nicholas no longer wondered that Fedora's thin cheeks had gone a greenish tinge. He shook his head. ”Even if you were good at heights, we couldn't make it. To carry one's whole weight on one's arms across sixty feet of s.p.a.ce would need the muscles of a Tarzan.”

”It's not as bad as that,” Fedora gulped. ”Pan s.m.u.tn said there is some special apparatus to take the weight, under the bed in his bedroom.”

”Praises be!” cried Nicholas, pivoting on toe and heel and rus.h.i.+ng from the room. A moment later he was dragging the escape gear from under Mr. s.m.u.tn's bed. There was enough for four people. Each set consisted of a six-inch broad leather belt, into which was sewn the end of a two-foot length of wire hawser, having at its other end a strong iron hook. The way in which it was intended that the gear should be used was obvious. One had only to buckle the belt round one's waist, put the hook over the telegraph cable, and jump off the parapet. The apparatus took the whole weight of the body, but, by using one's own strength when hanging on to the cable, one could lift oneself enough to enable the hook to slide a few inches at a time, and, as the cable sloped downwards, little impetus would be needed to carry one across to the building on the far side of the ca.n.a.l.

Grabbing up two of the belts, Nicholas hastened back to Fedora and held one of them out to her. ”Here!” he cried. ”Buckle that round you, and we'll soon be out of this.”

She waved it away. ”I can't, Nicky! I can't! The very thought of hanging from a telegraph cable absolutely petrifies me!”

”You've got to,” he said angrily; and as soon as he had done up his own belt he strapped the other round her waist. Then, seizing her by the wrist, he dragged her after him out of the room and along to the door that gave on to the roof.

Now smoke lit by a reddish glare was billowing up from outside the parapet, tongues of flame had broken out from several of the skylights and showers of sparks were being blown about by every breath of wind. From below there came a fierce crackling and it was clear that before long the whole roof would be ablaze.

Pulling the terrified Fedora after him, Nicholas made his way along inside the parapet to the ca.n.a.l end of the building, where the telegraph cable swung from the tall steel stanchion. Halting by it, he said to her: ”For G.o.d's sake pull yourself together. You have only to do as I tell you, and you'll be perfectly all right.”

”I can't!” she moaned. ”Please, please don't make me!”

”You've got to,” he insisted.

”No! No!” she tried to twist away from him. ”You go. Leave me behind.”

”Is it likely? Fedora, you've been so splendid up to now. Come on! Make an effort. Shut your eyes.”

Jittering with fear, she obeyed him, and let him help her up on to the parapet. Feeling for the long strap of her pouch bag, she slipped it over her head, so that it should not slide from her shoulder; then she opened her eyes and looked down. At the sight of the water glinting faintly sixty feet below her, she let out a low wail and swayed outward.

Nicholas caught her only just in time. His grab at her arm drew the upper part of her body inward, but her legs folded under her and she toppled right on to him. As he staggered back under the impact he realised that she had fainted.

Behind him there was now an angry roaring. One of the skylights fell in with a faint crash. From the aperture it left, a great tongue of flame shot up fifteen feet above the roof level. It was no longer possible to see across to the penthouse through the dense smoke and clouds of drifting sparks. The air had become hot and searing. It was difficult to breathe and the fumes made every breath painful. Nicholas knew that if he did not get away in the next few minutes, he would never get away at all.

There were no means and no time to attempt to revive Fedora. She was right out, and as limp as if she were dead. For a moment Nicholas stared down at her as she lay, face up, sprawled half across the parapet; then, seizing the hook attached to the belt round her waist, he tried to get it over the cable. Almost at once he saw that it could not be done. With only one hand he could not lift her high enough. He wondered how he could possibly save her. To pick her up and carry her across in his arms was out of the question, as he would need both his hands to propel himself along. Taking out his silk handkerchief, he mopped away the sweat that was streaming from his face.

The feel of the handkerchief gave him an idea. It was the same one which he had used to bandage his eyes in the X-cell that afternoon. Laying it on Fedora's chest, he quickly made a corner to corner bandage of it again, folding it now as many times as he could. Crossing her wrists one over the other on the centre of it he bound them together, tying the ends of the handkerchief in a reef knot, so that the greater the strain upon it the tighter it would become. Then he stooped his head and slid it between Fedora's arms so that her bound hands were at the back of his neck.

There came a moment when he feared he would never manage to accomplish the next stage. He had to lift her, climb up on the parapet and get the hook attached to his own belt over the cable. He was within an ace of overbalancing; but, with a frantic effort, he got the hook over just in time. It took their combined weight, and he breathed again.

Half-blinded by the smoke and choking from fumes, he pushed off. Instantly Fedora became a dead weight round his neck. The hook jerked the leather belt up so that its edge cut into his ribs, and he let out a gasp of pain. Tightening his grasp on the cable, he endeavoured to take his own weight and hers on his arm muscles. For a moment he managed to support it; but the hook did not slide along the cable because the angle was not steep enough, owing to the slight dip it made at the point from which he hung.

Spurred to a fresh effort by the scorching blast now rising from the roof beside him, he did a second pull up; then knocked the hook with his left hand while supporting himself with his right. It moved a few inches.

After resting for a moment, he repeated the movement with the same satisfactory result. Hope now battling with fear he continued the jerky motion, edging his way out from the burning building across the yawning gulf. But every few inches of progress was bought at the cost of a greater agony. When he rested his arms it seemed as if the leather belt was going to cut him in half, and each time he took the strain on his arms it seemed as if they were being torn from their sockets.

He was fifteen feet out when he heard something snap. He could not see anything by looking down, as the unconscious Fedora's head, hanging backwards so that her chin jutted up towards him, blocked his view below chest level. But he felt sure that some part of his belt had given.

Next moment, as he let their full weight be taken by the hook again, there came a tearing sound. Hastily, he tightened his grasp upon the cable, then gradually relaxed. Swiftly the full horror of his situation was borne in upon him. The gear had been made to take only one person, and the combined weight of two had proved too much for it. The two-foot length of wire hawser, to which the hook was attached, was tearing itself from its setting in the belt.

Once more he moved a few inches; but as he let himself down the belt refused to take the strain. He now had to hang on without respite. Sweat was streaming down his face. Every muscle in his body was as taut as a bow-string. The pull of Fedora upon him had the same effect as if his limbs were being slowly wrenched apart by the pulleys of a medieval rack. He was barely a quarter of the way across the chasm. He could not go forward and he could not go back. The cable hurt his palms intolerably. His grip began to slip. His left hand opened and only its finger tips still kept a precarious hold on the cable. Suddenly they slid from it. He was hanging now only by his right hand. For another moment he remained suspended by it. Then that opened too. With a groan he let go, and together they plunged into the dark abyss.

CHAPTER XVII.

ORDEAL BY WATER.

Nicholas' left arm had fallen to his side. His right remained stretched to its utmost reach above his head, as though in some parody of a Fascist salute. At the final sharp rending noise, as the last st.i.tches that held the short length of wire hawser to the belt had given way, the two bodies fell like a plummet.

Fedora was still completely out, hanging by her arms from Nicholas' neck, her head at his chest-level lolling limply back. His head too was thrown back. Despite the pull he had forced it back as, his eyes bulging from the strain, he had kept them riveted on his hands, the cable and the hook. Now, as he shot downwards, he had the illusion that he was not moving. Instead, it seemed as if some unseen power had suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed the cable and the hook upward from him. At one moment the cable had been as thick as the double barrel of a sporting gun; at the next it was no more than a black thread against the starry sky. In that same moment the sky itself seemed about to be swallowed up in darkness. As he had hung from the cable staring upwards, the buildings on either side of him had been outside his cone of vision; as he fell their tops came into it, then their black bulks, rus.h.i.+ng together with the speed of express trains, as though about to collide, disintegrate, and crush him under a mountain of rubble.

Yet, had he and Fedora practised that inverted dive scores of times to make a living by it in a circus, they could not have performed it better. It was their absolute rigidity which saved them from any serious harm. Fedora's toes, hanging a foot or more below Nicholas' feet, formed the arrow point of their combination as effectively as would have a diver's out-thrust hands; the faces of both were upturned, and the back of her head broke the force with which the water would otherwise have hit him under the chin. With scarcely a splash they pierced the surface and disappeared beneath it.

The ca.n.a.l was only about eight feet deep. Although the water checked the speed of their fall, they plunged to its bottom almost instantly. Had it been man-made, and concreted, the legs of both of them must have been broken; but it was an old river-bed thick with the silt of ages. Yet this very fact which saved them from crippling injuries now threatened to bring about their deaths. Fedora was plunged in the mud up to her knees, and Nicholas well past his ankles.

Only one factor gave them any chance of surviving. As they had struck the water feet first and face to face, the breath had not been driven from their bodies. That saved them from instant suffocation and left Nicholas with enough strength to struggle.

For a moment the nightmare of an agonising death down there in the chill, pitch darkness was strong upon him. It seemed as if his feet were gripped in a rubber vice and that he would never be able to get them free. Panic seized him. He found his hands grasping Fedora's shoulders. Thrusting down upon them with all his strength, he arched his back and tore his feet out of the mud. But her arms were still locked round his neck so he could not push himself up to the surface.

It was then he felt her move. The shock of the cold water had brought her round, and she too had begun to struggle. Seizing her round the waist he strove to draw her upward, but she was too deeply imbedded for his efforts to raise her, even a few inches.

His lungs now seemed on the point of bursting. Stars and circles danced wildly in front of his closed eyes. Desperately he tried to think clearly and co-ordinate his movements so as not to waste his failing strength. But he could not. He gulped in a mouthful of evil-tasting water and it caused him excruciating pain as it gushed down his throat. Wildly now, he struck out in all directions. Then something hard but supple hit him on the head and slid down over his face.

Groping at it with both hands he found it was a rope. In his straining chest his heart leapt with new hope as he pulled a length of it towards him. By frantic fumbling he managed to thrust a bight of it under Fedora's right arm and round her back, so that he could clutch it firmly with his right hand; then with his left, he began to jerk violently on the vertical length that ran upwards to the surface, praying that whoever had thrown it would take his jerks for signals that he had secured himself to it.

An age seemed to pa.s.s before anything further happened. Despite himself his mouth opened again and gulped in more water. Renewed panic and terror made him kick out afresh; but Fedora was still fast in the mud and formed as effective an anchor for him as if she had been a ton of lead. At last the rope tightened. Then a new agony began. Fearing that he might not prove strong enough to keep hold of the bight of rope round Fedora, he had slipped his forearm through it. Now his arm was caught and crushed against her ribs and, although protecting them, felt as though it was being cut through.

As the strain increased, he could have screamed with agony; but Fedora too was conscious that an attempt was being made to rescue them, and was exerting every ounce of her remaining strength in an endeavour to kick herself free. As she got one leg out, its sudden release caused them to lurch sideways. The rope slipped higher, giving him momentary relief; then as the strain was taken up again it caused him fresh torture by cutting into his bicep. Another moment of excruciating pain, and the ordeal was over. The mud released its last hold and, though the rope slackened, they were drawn to the surface.

During the next few minutes neither of them had a very clear impression of what was happening. As they gulped air into their bursting lungs they smelt the stench of the foul water, and felt rough hands dragging them from it. For a brief interval they lay sprawled on the hard boards of a deck, vaguely conscious of the lurid fire still raging far above their heads, drifting clouds of smoke, and the mutter of low, urgent voices nearby. Then all these were blotted out by a big tarpaulin being hastily dragged over them.

When, after a few more minutes, Nicholas' thoughts became coherent again, he could hear Fedora breathing fast but regularly as she laboured to restore her respiration to normal; so he knew that she could have suffered no great harm. His next thought was that while they were exceedingly lucky to be alive at all, they were still luckier in having fallen into friendly hands; for it seemed evident that they had. He had registered just enough of his surroundings to know that they had been hauled aboard a motor river barge, and he felt sure that the tarpaulin could have been thrown over them only to hide them from any police who might be watching the ca.n.a.l, as the barge chugged past the streets adjacent to the warehouse. Temporarily relieved of any immediate fears, he gave his mind to the minor physical ills he had sustained, spitting out the filthy water he had swallowed, gently ma.s.saging his arm where the rope had chafed it, and generally pulling himself together.

Five minutes later his surmise, that they were among friends, was confirmed. The tarpaulin was lifted off them and a gruff voice said, ”We are just about to turn into the river; but I take it you two have no wish to be landed yet awhile?”

The man who had spoken to them was a big, bearded fellow, wearing a square pilot jacket and a peaked seaman's cap. Swiftly and simultaneously the two fugitives answered him, saying they would prefer to remain on board. At their eagerness he laughed, and said while helping Fedora to her feet: ”When I saw you hanging from that cable, and all those Coms down in the street, I guessed it must be you that they were after. No one who was not on the run would have taken such a suicidal risk to escape the fire alone-not when they could have signalled for a fire ladder to be run up to them. But come down to the cabin and get your wet things off.”

Still holding Fedora by the arm, he led the way across the deck and down a short steep ladder to a low cabin which was dimly lit by a single oil lamp. As he turned up its wick he went on: ”My name is Sova-Karel Sova. Don't tell me yours if you'd prefer not to. I'm the master of this barge, and we're taking a cargo of army boots down the Moldau as far at Litomice.”

”We owe our lives to you, Pan Sova,” said Nicholas with deep feeling; and Fedora chimed in, ”Indeed we do, and there are no words with which we can thank you.”

”It is G.o.d you should thank,” came the quick reply. ”For this night, He clearly had His hand over you. Since you did not break your necks in your fall, you should certainly still be stuck in the mud at the bottom of the ca.n.a.l. At that hour, the chances against a barge pa.s.sing the place at which you dropped, close enough to mark the spot and throw you a rope, must be at least a thousand to one. And I was due to sail at midnight. Had not my wife been suddenly taken ill I should by this time have been an hour and a half's distance away down the river.”

”Surely more even than that,” Nicholas murmured, ”as it must be getting on towards morning.”

The bearded Sova pulled out an old-fas.h.i.+oned turnip watch, and glanced at it. ”Not much,” he said. ”It is now twenty minutes to two, and it can hardly be more than ten minutes ago that we picked you up.”