  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. “What a numbskull I was to throw it there and not tell anyone about it,” he thought to himself. “I shall probably not get out of this alive. The bag may stay there for weeks. Then it is likely to be found by the wrong person. And I am all but certain that it contains evidence which would go far toward putting Knobs Whittaker behind the bars.” During all this time his friend Mazie, ignorant of the fate of her three friends, had at first been jostled and pushed by the fear-maddened throng until at last she had fought her way out into a little open space where she was allowed to pause for breath. Stationing herself in a secluded spot, she had watched the little drama played by Pant and his two friends. Without knowing who they were, she had screamed her approval with the others. Having caught sight of two figures moving about at the top of the tower, and happening to think of her opera glasses, she drew them from her pocket and focussed them upon the top of the tower. A look of surprise spread over her face as she recognized the topmost man. It was the hook-nosed, stooped figure of the firebug. The glasses dropped from her nerveless fingers as she recognized the other one as her friend Johnny, who was at this moment crawling over the railing with the apparent intention of leaping to the ground. “He’ll be killed!” she fairly screamed as she closed her eyes to shut out the sight. When at last she summoned up enough courage to look again she was astonished to see, some twenty feet below the balcony where she had last seen Johnny, a figure that clung to the corner of the tower and appeared by some miracle of skill and strength to be moving downward. She snatched up her glasses to look again and again came little short of dropping them the second time. The figure clinging to the corner of the tower was Johnny! Seldom is it given to man to witness such a human spider act as she was privileged to watch during the next five minutes. The chance that Johnny had seen was a slim one, yet it was a chance. At regular intervals of a foot, two double rows of incandescent lamps ran down the corner of the tower. The two rows on the south side were four inches apart; those on the east the same. These lamp sockets protruded for about three inches, and using them as steps to his ladder, Johnny was slowly but surely climbing downward. There was great peril in the undertaking. A broken socket, a sudden slip, and all would be over. Never in all his eventful life had Johnny undertaken a feat which required so much skill and daring. Yet, once he had committed himself to the undertaking, there was no turning back. By great good fortune, the sockets which held the lamps had been fastened with long nails instead of screws. The wood was strong. One by one the sockets supported his weight. Like a bat, gripping with both hands and feet, he moved cautiously downward. As Mazie watched him she measured the distance: “A quarter done, a third, a half, a—but there,” she cried, “there’s a flame shooting out below him!” Johnny saw it, too, but there was no turning back. Trusting to good fortune, he continued steadily downward. Fortune did not desert him; a breath of air sucked the flame back and the next moment he had passed the spot. Again Mazie resumed her eye measurement. It was a mad thing to do, but it was all that was left to her. “Two-thirds of the way; three-quarters. But there’s a lower balcony! How is he to pass that?” How indeed? This balcony, some six feet in width, left no opportunity to climb over its rail and down. Some forty feet from the ground, it threatened to stop the boy’s progress and condemn him to a terrible death. As Johnny reached this balcony, flames were leaping at him from every side. Directly before him, however, was a clear space. Through that space he caught sight of what at first appeared to be flames, but what proved in the end to be but the reflection of the fire in the pool of water used by the chute. It was fully forty feet below him. Johnny’s keen brain worked like lightning. One look, and then a racing leap. With arms and figure set for a dive, he shot far out and down. He disappeared from Mazie’s view, nor could she ascertain his fate. To go there to see would have been sheer madness. Half burned off at the bottom, the two hundred foot tower was already tottering to a fall. A moment it hung there in space, a second, and yet a third. Having once more trained her glass on the top of it, Mazie saw a figure standing upon the topmost pinnacle. It was the firebug! For twenty seconds he hovered there between earth and sky. Then, just as the tower bent to a rakish angle, he toppled over and fell headlong. “It’s as well,” she sighed, dropping her glasses and brushing a tear from her eye. “There can be no pain in such a death. Poor fellow! His brain must have been addled.” For a time she stood there alone, thinking of many things. Then, realizing that the hour was late and that there was little chance of finding her friends even if they were still alive, she turned her face toward home. “If they are still in the land of the living,” she told herself, “they’ll come straggling in. A cup of hot cocoa will do them good. I’ll have the water ready.” |
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