New Nick Carter Weekly, No. 8 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

NEW NICK CARTER WEEKLY. q He saw that he had been eoretiie! the back side of a flight of steps. These steps were so arranged that if/ they had been leaned over to the side of, the wall upon which was the panel door, | they would have made a safe though rather steep descent from that point. It looked as if the mechanism had been so arranged that with the working of the lever in the violent way that Trim had worked it the steps would be thrown for- ward, thus leaving a perfectly enrpty well down which a body would fall unob- structed. Trim had escaped that fate, first, by catching on to the edge of the floor, and, second, by his risky but successful whirl- ing in the air and so catching upon the back edges of the steps. Well,’ thought Trim, ‘‘these fellows have tigged up a very clever scheme, and if it hadn’t been for good luck I should probably have beén dead now right here where I’m standing.”’ He directed the rays of the lamp then at the floor and around lim, and saw that a passage led from the spot in a direction that appeared to be toward the street upon which the house was situated. It inclined slightly downward. The rays of Trim’s lamp showed him the bare walls of this passage, which was just high enough for an ordinary man to stand in erect, for a distance of two or three rods. Then all was dense darkness. After a moment’s thought Trim put out the lamp and started down the pas: | sage in the dark. His reason for this. was a suspicion that his foes might be in hiding some. where below and that they might be arned | of his approach by the rays of there was Sones that he . aint step into a pitfall at any point, but he chose to take this tisk tather than the ptier . By an = en as gone Pe fifty paces he the eg srounc ope his feet oes and | therefore concluded that he had reached a turning in the passage. He was tempted to relight his lamp, but decided not to do so until he had made .a little investigation in the darkness. Reaching out with his other hand, he felt the end of the other wall. It was clear, therefore, that the passage down which he had just come ended in another passage running at aright angle to it. Trim stepped cautiously forward a couple of paces and came up against an- other wall. This was proof that his judgment was correct up to this point, and the question now was, should he turn to the right or to the left ? The new passage seemed to be rather wider than the one that led from the house, but it was exactly like it in other respects as far as Trim-could discover in the darkness. ‘‘It won’t do,’ he reflected, ‘‘to strike a match here, for the passage may be per- fectly straight in both directions and the flame of a match could be seen a long way off. “Shall I go to the right or to the left?”’ CHAPTER IIL. TRIM IN A ‘TRAP. Trim stood still for a moment debating the puzzling question. He tried to make up his mind which way the passages went, whether north or ‘south or otherwise. So far as he could tell, the passage that led from the house had run in nearly a straight line, and according to that, it seemed to him that the -passage to which he had now come must run very nearly notth and south. South would be toward the favs With the thought that possibly the scoundrels might have prepared some way of escape by water, he started along the passage toward the south. He remembered the steamer that had ~|been cruising in the harbor at the time of the great attempt at jail breaking for the purpose evidently of taking the escaped convicts on board.* pete, te a the telety Ferre,” Mo. f N Nick Carter Liprary sai aps 3 0) nicboo GE @)