Clinging with his fingers to the upper edge his feet
still swung in space. How far beneath was the bottom? He heard the
scraping of the heavy shoes of the searchers close above him, and
then he closed his eyes, released the grasp of his fingers, and
dropped.
IV
A RACE TO LUTHA
Barney's fall was not more than four or five feet. He found himself
upon a slippery floor of masonry over which two or three inches of
water ran sluggishly. Above him he heard the soldiers pass the open
manhole. It was evident that in the darkness they had missed it.
For a few minutes the fugitive remained motionless, then, hearing no
sounds from above he started to grope about his retreat. Upon two
sides were blank, circular walls, upon the other two circular
openings about four feet in diameter. It was through these openings
that the tiny stream of water trickled.
Barney came to the conclusion that he had dropped into a sewer. To
get out the way he had entered appeared impossible. He could not
leap upward from the slimy, concave bottom the distance he had
dropped. To follow the sewer upward would lead him nowhere nearer
escape. There remained no hope but to follow the trickling stream
downward toward the river, into which his judgment told him the
entire sewer system of the city must lead.
Stooping, he entered the ill-smelling circular conduit, groping his
way slowly along.
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