Just that one gruesome cry there was and silence again.

What did it mean?

M. Max began hastily to dress.  He discovered, in endeavoring to fasten his collar, that his skin was wet with cold perspiration.

“Pardieu!” he said, twisting his mouth into that wry smile, “I know, now, the meaning of fright!”

He was ever glancing toward the door, not hopefully as hitherto, but apprehensively, fearfully.

That shriek in the night might portend merely the delirium of some other occupant of the catacombs; but the shots...

“It was Soames!” he whispered aloud; “I have risked too much; I am fast in the rat-trap!”

He looked about him for a possible weapon.  The time for inactivity was past.  It would be horrible to die in that reeking place, whilst outside, it might be, immediately above his head, Dunbar and the others waited and watched.

The construction of the metal bunk attracted his attention.  As in the case of steamer bunks one of the rails—­that nearer to the door—­was detachable in order to facilitate the making of the bed.  Rapidly, nervously, he unscrewed it; but the hinges were riveted to the main structure, and after a brief examination he shrugged his shoulders despairingly.  Then, he recollected that in the adjoining bathroom there was a metal towel rail, nickeled, and with a heavy knock at either end, attached by two brackets to the wall.

He ran into the inner room and eagerly examined these fastenings.  They were attached by small steel screws.  In an instant he was at work with the blade of his pocket-knife.  Six screws in all there were to be dealt with, three at either end.  The fifth snapped the blade and he uttered an exclamation of dismay.  But the shortened implement proved to be an even better screw-driver than the original blade, and half a minute later he found himself in possession of a club such as would have delighted the soul of Hercules.

He managed to unscrew one of the knobs, and thus to slide off from the bar the bracket attachments; then, replacing the knob, he weighed the bar in his hand, appreciatively.  His mind now was wholly composed, and his course determined.  He crossed the little room and rapped loudly upon the door.

The rapping sounded muffled and dim in that sound-proof place.  Nothing happened, and thrice he repeated the rapping with like negative results.  But he had learnt something:  the door was a very heavy one.

He made a note of the circumstance, although it did not interfere with the plan which he had in mind.  Wheeling the armchair up beside the bed, he mounted upon its two arms and, once—­twice—­thrice—­crashed the knob of the iron bar against that part of the wall which concealed the trap.

Here the result was immediate.  At every blow of the bar the trap behind yielded.  A fourth blow sent the knob crashing through the gauze material, and far out into some dark place beyond.  There was a sound as of a number of books falling.