The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-18

aired side room. he saw, was lighted by large glass lamp on an empty packing case, although he could plain ly see a rusty gas bracket close be- side the door. The cemented walls of the chamber itself were clammy with moisture, as were the bricks that showed through the broken ce- ment of the floor where he lay. Even the iron grill in the transom above the narrow door was red with rust. The sweating walls and the heavi- ness of the air, together with the anticipated force pump which he caught sight of in the lowest corner of the room, tended to persuade him that he was we'll below the water line of the East River. This convic- tion did not add to his comfort of mind, any more than did the discov- cry of three sturdy-looking cases piled in a low-vaulted gallery open ing off the farthest wall, since he could make out, even in that un- certain light, the stenciled inscription of ''The Dumond Powder Company" on one of the boxes.
 What fretted Manley most. how ever, was his lack of freedom. And this brought his thoughts back to his own aching limbs and the cotton thongs so painfully constricting them. Then, rolling little over on his side, he studied minutely the rough brick flooring on which he lay. After this {, inspection he wormed his way cara fully from side to side, lying faco down and trying each row of exposed bricks with his shoe toe, in the hope of finding one of them loose.
 He had elaborately tested eleven rows before he found any reason for hope in this direction. A chill of excitement ran through his tired body in fact, as he discovered one brick which seemed less securely embedded in cement than were it's fellows. He worked at it patiently, laboriously, kicking away small par ticles of plaster, humping 1t with his boot heel, prying at it with his sole until it rocked free in it's row. Then came the even sterner task of shifting it from it's place. This he did by turning about and lying close to it, on his side, so that the fingers of his tightly imprisoned hand might come in contact with it's edges. Time after time it fell back, but in the end he triumphed
 Yet it was not this unearthed brick which interested him. His attention was directed toward the rough-edge parallelogram where that brick had originally rested, for the corners of this opening, he soon realized, pro- vided him with saw edge which might serve to abrade and cut through the stoutest of cotton rope. But the consolation of this hope did not stay with him long. For, even as he started to work, his movements were interrupted by the sound of a key in the heavy iron lock on the door that shut him in. He rolled over quickly, twisting about so that his apparently inert body covered both the loosened brick and the spot from which it had been taken. He continued to lie there as though in a sleep of exhaustion, for his yelled eyes had already caught sight of the two heavy-featured ruffians advanc- ing into the room. He could even smell a rye-laden breath as the smaller of the two men leaned over him.
 Let the poor boob sleep" warned the larger man, in husky whisper. Hes goin' to cash in before morn in'!"
 The rye-laden breath was with drawn.
 "But I'm sick O markin' time down in this rat hole. Why can't Legar get back here where he belongs and do his own stick-up work?"
 q tell you the does up to the Golden house makin' his haul when the coasts clear! And if you wake that king there you'll have to cut out the red-eye and keep busy chokin' off his holler!"
 Manley could hear their shufi1ing feet as they recrossed the rough flooring and then the scrape and rasp of the rusty lock as they once more turned the key in the door. But the moment they were gone he was once more busy with the cotton rope about his wrists, for what he had overheard increased his passion for liberty, left him doubly frantic to be once more a free agent. But to cut through a rope with a brick edge, when that rope is bound closely about one's pinioned wrists and forearms, is no easy matter. It involved many un- couth acrobatics and meant much strained posturing. It implied count less grotesque see-sawing movements of the body and quivering demands on muscles long unused. When a man, however, Is still youthfully blind enough to believe in his start, to nurse the delusion that some special cinQ1nd watches over him, he is not easily discouraged. Yet discouragement came, and came in a form most un- expected, even before Manley's hands were free.
 It came, in fact, in the form of green bodied parrot creeping stealth fly through the rusty crossbars grill ing the transom above the locked door. And 1t took no second glance to tell Manley that the intruder was Tito itself. His first thought, indeed, was that this strange intruder was ap- preaching him as an emissary of hope, as dove, from the ark of the Golden home. But he realized the foolishness of that hope as he watched the bird slip into the room, climb along the rusty iron gaspipe, and, reaching down with it's beak on the gas jet, de- liberately turn it on.
 Manley knew what this meant, and 1t spurred him to even more frantic efforts toNsaw through the cords still holding him a prisoner, for already the fumes of the escaping gas were reaching his nostrils. The thought of asphyxiation was not a pleasant one.
 But his legs were still tied, and his numbed fingers were no match for the