hat
night, they knew that the man had gone and would keep his word!

"Dennis, boy," said Bob quickly, "I'm rather afraid our number's up,
after all. I'm useless with this leg, but where there's life there's
hope. There's a permanent ladder at the end of this hole. Give me my
crutch again, and, meanwhile, see where it leads to."

Dennis did not require telling twice.

"You're right, Bob," he said. "There's death on the other side of that
door, so it's wasting time to try whether that hound has fastened it or
no." And while he spoke he flashed his own pocket torch to the far end
of the engine-room. "You'll be able to pick your way, and I'll be back
in a shake," he concluded, tearing along the floor and bounding up a
permanent ladder to the next storey.

A circling sweep of his invaluable light showed the lad a low-ceilinged
room corresponding to the one he had just left, and a cool wind blowing
in from somewhere reminded him of his adventure in the German dug-out,
and the friendly passage he had discovered.

"Come on, Bob!" he called down the ladder. "I'll be back in a minute and
give you a hand. We'll do the beggar yet."

He bounded through the door which his light revealed, and found himself
in the open air upon an iron gallery running along the outside of the
building.

His impulse was to lift up a shout of thankfulness at the sight of
another iron ladder, obviously leading into the yard below. To make
quite certain that the way was clear he ran towards it, and stole
cautiously down for a short distance, trying to penetrate the intense
blackness in quest of any sign of Von Dussel.

All at once his feet dropped into nothingness, for, unknown to him, an
English shell had carried away the rest of the ladder a week before,
and, clutching wildly at the last step, he clung there, dangling in
space!

To let go, even had he known the distance between him and the ground,
was absolutely unthinkable with his brother helpless and unwarned within
the building, and though the explosion of the mine might happen any
moment, his one and only effort was to get back by sheer strength of arm
and return to Bob's assistance.

"If we've got to go out to-night we'll go out together," he muttered
between his teeth, and he added something of a prayer to the resolve.

The fragment of the ladder vibrated under his weight as he worked
himself slowly and cautiously to one edge, and the sharpness of the
jagged iron rungs hurt his hands