To find his way through the narrow corridor was no easy matter, and Gilbert was soon suffering for the want of pure air. He, however, gained the first of the two rooms mentioned in safety; and on his heels came Grimes.
"Help! help! Let us out!" came in the voices of two men, a Russian and a German; and the door was quickly unlocked. The men leaped out like wild beasts, hurling Grimes flat in their eagerness to escape.
"Now the other door!" said Gilbert, in a hoarse whisper, so thick was the smoke in his throat; but Grimes was too dazed to answer, and, rising, the keeper ran after the pair who had just been liberated.
Gilbert was going after him, when his foot touched something and sent it spinning against a side wall. It was a prison key, the one Grimes had dropped. Hurriedly he picked it up, and ran for the last room at the end of the corrider.
Here were three men fighting madly to pull down the iron barrier with their bare hands, while a fourth was at the window bars. "Let us out!" cried one, in broken English. "Do not let us roast to death!"
"I will open the door," answered Gilbert. "Stand
