ily swung himself into it. A second more and a rope ladder had fallen beside the big sentinel, who, revolver in hand, held off the two scoundrels who had tried to seize it.
"Stand back! You two go last—or stay as dead men!" he shouted angrily. "Up you go, Flint," he ordered in the same breath.
At once Flint scrambled up the swaying steps, and Burgoyne, still threatening the desperate pair of ruffians with his leveled revolver, was on the point of following his example, when from above came a cry:
"Look out, Hugh! Jump for it!"
But he was too late; for a bright thin wire had dropped from aloft, caught in the ladder's middle, and instantly had dragged it away from the globe, with Burgoyne hanging by one hand to its last step.
"Jump for the door, Hugh! Quick!" shouted Carscadden desperately.
"Sure!" muttered Burgoyne to himself. "But it's a cent to a million dollars I miss it." And as the end of the ladder dangling from the rapidly updrawn wire came abreast of the door, he twisted around with a supreme effort and made a flying
"A dense, poisonous fog rushed through the narrowing slit left by the closing door."
