New Nick Carter Weekly, No. 8 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

higher up the steps until he was stooping | heard above the crashing of the coming = ‘still no getting it up.. _ Again he fired into the lock. The vio- lent rebound of the weapon showed him i in ve ‘2 on +4 the pena 14 MEW NICK CARTER WEEKLY. A wild thought had entered Trim’s!} His hand was numbed-with pain, but head just before the pistol shot that an-| with grim determination he held the nounced the murder of Schriggs. weapon against the lock and fired repeat- ‘Why shouldn't he run hack up the | edly until every chamber of the revolver tunnel to the passage that led to the Bal-| had been emptied. main house and so escape ?’’ His ears began to ring strangely, and it He had abandoned this thought the seemed asif the blood “wottld burst forth moment it came to him for two reasons. from the pores of his skin. He did not In the first place, it was not at all proba- | understand at this instant what tlis ble that he could get to the house ahead meant. of the inrushing water. It was the fact that the rushing water In the second place, and that was more} filling the tunnel full was compressing the important, it was not possible for him toj gir at the southern end so that it was be- Tul away. coming too dense to breathe. His duty was here where danger was,| Just as he fired his last shot into the and here he would fight it ont even if his|lock he felt the water rising about his life should be lost in the effort. feet. He wondered vaguely why it did -With the sound of the. incoming water not ingulf him at once. there came to Trim a tremendous deter-; This again he understood later. The mination to escape. pressure of the air was holding the flood “Schruggs opened this trap for his | back. highness,’’ Trim said to himself, *‘a few Again he strained with his back against minutes ago. If he could stir, T ‘clive the trap to raise it. I could frighten him into opening it for) The roarink of the water had dimin- me. But there is no use of thinking/ished, and now he heard the frantic that, for he is undoubtedly. mortally shrieking of nOREDEES in a chamber wounded. ’’ “ above. ‘Thinking thus, he went higher and| ‘‘If I had one more shot,’’ thought Trim, ‘‘I believe I could burst that leck to pieces. The water was rising higher and now his knees were wet with it. There was almost a sense of despair in the boy’s heart as he hastily slipped the empty cartridges from his revolver and began to reload the weapon: . He was still standing with his back against the trap and straining with all his might to raise it as he reloaded the weapon. His brain whirled and perspiration started from every pore in his body. - Of a sudden there was a great crash. }and a sound like the report of a cannon. With it the trapdoor flew upward and Trim leaped and was half blown, Aistethe chamber above. ‘The pressure of the. iighry. ‘flood against the compressed air in the tunnel had done the work that a dozer would have failed todo. — % It had burst th iron 4 coe i +) beneath. the trap; then with his back against the trap he exerted all his force to raise it. It would not budge! The iron lock was too much for /iim. : The roaring of the coming water grew louder and louder! It was fairly deafen- ing, and as it came he felt the air stirring about him. Above he could hear the groans of the dying Schruggs. Whatever he could do must be done at once, and ‘Trim was los- ing no time. ‘He placed the barrel of his revolver at the kevhole of the trapdoor lock and fired into it. The sound. of ‘the shot could hardly be flood. “Immediately after. the shot Trim tried ain to raise the door. It seemed to him tit yielded a little bit, but, ‘there y was that the ball had SB ee att the;